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fdbae010 | 1 | Python Twitter Tools |
a65893e4 | 2 | ==================== |
fdbae010 | 3 | |
70cca93c | 4 | [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/sixohsix/twitter.svg)](https://travis-ci.org/sixohsix/twitter) [![Coverage Status](https://coveralls.io/repos/hugovk/twitter/badge.png?branch=master)](https://coveralls.io/r/hugovk/twitter?branch=master) |
9ae71d46 | 5 | |
f1a8ed67 | 6 | The Minimalist Twitter API for Python is a Python API for Twitter, |
7 | everyone's favorite Web 2.0 Facebook-style status updater for people | |
8 | on the go. | |
fdbae010 | 9 | |
f1a8ed67 | 10 | Also included is a twitter command-line tool for getting your friends' |
11 | tweets and setting your own tweet from the safety and security of your | |
5b8b1ead | 12 | favorite shell and an IRC bot that can announce Twitter updates to an |
f1a8ed67 | 13 | IRC channel. |
fdbae010 | 14 | |
5f47b302 | 15 | For more information, after installing the `twitter` package: |
fdbae010 | 16 | |
17 | * import the `twitter` package and run help() on it | |
18 | * run `twitter -h` for command-line tool help | |
a65893e4 | 19 | |
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20 | |
21 | twitter - The Command-Line Tool | |
22 | ------------------------------- | |
a65893e4 | 23 | |
30913a4e | 24 | The command-line tool lets you do some awesome things: |
a65893e4 | 25 | |
30913a4e | 26 | * view your tweets, recent replies, and tweets in lists |
a65893e4 MV |
27 | * view the public timeline |
28 | * follow and unfollow (leave) friends | |
29 | * various output formats for tweet information | |
51e0b8f1 | 30 | |
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31 | The bottom line: type `twitter`, receive tweets. |
32 | ||
33 | ||
34 | ||
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35 | twitterbot - The IRC Bot |
36 | ------------------------ | |
a65893e4 MV |
37 | |
38 | The IRC bot is associated with a twitter account (either your own account or an | |
39 | account you create for the bot). The bot announces all tweets from friends | |
40 | it is following. It can be made to follow or leave friends through IRC /msg | |
41 | commands. | |
42 | ||
5f47b302 | 43 | |
5f47b302 | 44 | twitter-log |
51e0b8f1 | 45 | ----------- |
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46 | |
47 | `twitter-log` is a simple command-line tool that dumps all public | |
48 | tweets from a given user in a simple text format. It is useful to get | |
49 | a complete offsite backup of all your tweets. Run `twitter-log` and | |
50 | read the instructions. | |
51 | ||
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52 | twitter-archiver and twitter-follow |
53 | ----------------------------------- | |
54 | ||
55 | twitter-archiver will log all the tweets posted by any user since they | |
56 | started posting. twitter-follow will print a list of all of all the | |
57 | followers of a user (or all the users that user follows). | |
58 | ||
5f47b302 | 59 | |
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60 | Programming with the Twitter api classes |
61 | ======================================== | |
62 | ||
63 | ||
64 | The Twitter and TwitterStream classes are the key to building your own | |
65 | Twitter-enabled applications. | |
66 | ||
67 | ||
68 | The Twitter class | |
69 | ----------------- | |
70 | ||
71 | The minimalist yet fully featured Twitter API class. | |
72 | ||
73 | Get RESTful data by accessing members of this class. The result | |
74 | is decoded python objects (lists and dicts). | |
75 | ||
76 | The Twitter API is documented at: | |
77 | ||
5d5d68cc | 78 | **[http://dev.twitter.com/doc](http://dev.twitter.com/doc)** |
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79 | |
80 | ||
81 | Examples:: | |
82 | ||
bcbd4e2b | 83 | ```python |
814d84f5 | 84 | from twitter import * |
51e0b8f1 | 85 | |
814d84f5 MG |
86 | # see "Authentication" section below for tokens and keys |
87 | t = Twitter( | |
88 | auth=OAuth(OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_SECRET, | |
89 | CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET) | |
90 | ) | |
51e0b8f1 | 91 | |
814d84f5 MG |
92 | # Get your "home" timeline |
93 | t.statuses.home_timeline() | |
51e0b8f1 | 94 | |
814d84f5 | 95 | # Get a particular friend's timeline |
aaf199d3 | 96 | t.statuses.user_timeline(screen_name="billybob") |
51e0b8f1 | 97 | |
ae2bf888 HN |
98 | # to pass in GET/POST parameters, such as `count` |
99 | t.statuses.home_timeline(count=5) | |
100 | ||
101 | # to pass in the GET/POST parameter `id` you need to use `_id` | |
102 | t.statuses.oembed(_id=1234567890) | |
103 | ||
814d84f5 MG |
104 | # Update your status |
105 | t.statuses.update( | |
106 | status="Using @sixohsix's sweet Python Twitter Tools.") | |
51e0b8f1 | 107 | |
814d84f5 MG |
108 | # Send a direct message |
109 | t.direct_messages.new( | |
110 | user="billybob", | |
111 | text="I think yer swell!") | |
d09c0dd3 | 112 | |
814d84f5 MG |
113 | # Get the members of tamtar's list "Things That Are Rad" |
114 | t._("tamtar")._("things-that-are-rad").members() | |
51e0b8f1 | 115 | |
814d84f5 MG |
116 | # Note how the magic `_` method can be used to insert data |
117 | # into the middle of a call. You can also use replacement: | |
118 | t.user.list.members(user="tamtar", list="things-that-are-rad") | |
a5aab114 | 119 | |
814d84f5 | 120 | # An *optional* `_timeout` parameter can also be used for API |
9ae71d46 | 121 | # calls which take much more time than normal or Twitter stops |
122 | # responding for some reason | |
814d84f5 | 123 | t.users.lookup(screen_name=','.join(A_LIST_OF_100_SCREEN_NAMES), _timeout=1) |
51e0b8f1 | 124 | |
ae2bf888 HN |
125 | # Overriding Method: GET/POST |
126 | # you should not need to use this method as this library properly | |
127 | # detects whether GET or POST should be used, Nevertheless | |
128 | # to force a particular method, use `_method` | |
129 | t.statuses.oembed(_id=1234567890, _method='GET') | |
130 | ``` | |
51e0b8f1 | 131 | |
814d84f5 | 132 | Searching Twitter:: |
51e0b8f1 | 133 | |
814d84f5 MG |
134 | ``` python |
135 | # Search for the latest tweets about #pycon | |
136 | t.search.tweets(q="#pycon") | |
137 | ``` | |
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138 | |
139 | Using the data returned | |
140 | ----------------------- | |
141 | ||
142 | Twitter API calls return decoded JSON. This is converted into | |
143 | a bunch of Python lists, dicts, ints, and strings. For example:: | |
144 | ||
814d84f5 MG |
145 | ```python |
146 | x = twitter.statuses.home_timeline() | |
51e0b8f1 | 147 | |
814d84f5 MG |
148 | # The first 'tweet' in the timeline |
149 | x[0] | |
51e0b8f1 | 150 | |
814d84f5 MG |
151 | # The screen name of the user who wrote the first 'tweet' |
152 | x[0]['user']['screen_name'] | |
153 | ``` | |
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154 | |
155 | Getting raw XML data | |
156 | -------------------- | |
157 | ||
158 | If you prefer to get your Twitter data in XML format, pass | |
159 | format="xml" to the Twitter object when you instantiate it:: | |
160 | ||
814d84f5 MG |
161 | ```python |
162 | twitter = Twitter(format="xml") | |
163 | ``` | |
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164 | |
165 | The output will not be parsed in any way. It will be a raw string | |
166 | of XML. | |
167 | ||
168 | ||
169 | The TwitterStream class | |
170 | ----------------------- | |
171 | ||
172 | The TwitterStream object is an interface to the Twitter Stream API | |
173 | (stream.twitter.com). This can be used pretty much the same as the | |
174 | Twitter class except the result of calling a method will be an | |
175 | iterator that yields objects decoded from the stream. For | |
176 | example:: | |
177 | ||
814d84f5 MG |
178 | ```python |
179 | twitter_stream = TwitterStream(auth=UserPassAuth('joe', 'joespassword')) | |
180 | iterator = twitter_stream.statuses.sample() | |
51e0b8f1 | 181 | |
814d84f5 MG |
182 | for tweet in iterator: |
183 | # ...do something with this tweet... | |
184 | ``` | |
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185 | |
186 | The iterator will yield tweets forever and ever (until the stream | |
187 | breaks at which point it raises a TwitterHTTPError.) | |
188 | ||
189 | The `block` parameter controls if the stream is blocking. Default | |
190 | is blocking (True). When set to False, the iterator will | |
191 | occasionally yield None when there is no available message. | |
192 | ||
84e6e1e4 | 193 | Per default the ``TwitterStream`` object uses |
194 | [public streams](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis/streams/public). | |
195 | If you want to use one of the other | |
196 | [streaming APIs](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis), specify the URL | |
197 | manually: | |
198 | ||
199 | - [Public streams](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis/streams/public): stream.twitter.com | |
200 | - [User streams](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis/streams/user): userstream.twitter.com | |
201 | - [Site streams](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-apis/streams/site): sitestream.twitter.com | |
202 | ||
203 | Note that you require the proper | |
204 | [permissions](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/application-permission-model) to | |
205 | access these streams. E.g. for direct messages your | |
206 | [application](https://dev.twitter.com/apps) needs the "Read, Write & Direct | |
207 | Messages" permission. | |
208 | ||
9ae71d46 | 209 | The following example demonstrates how to retrieve all new direct messages |
84e6e1e4 | 210 | from the user stream: |
211 | ||
212 | ```python | |
213 | auth = OAuth( | |
214 | consumer_key='[your consumer key]', | |
215 | consumer_secret='[your consumer secret]', | |
216 | token='[your token]', | |
217 | token_secret='[your token secret]' | |
218 | ) | |
219 | twitter_userstream = TwitterStream(auth=auth, domain='userstream.twitter.com') | |
220 | for msg in twitter_userstream.user(): | |
221 | if 'direct_message' in msg: | |
222 | print msg['direct_message']['text'] | |
223 | ``` | |
224 | ||
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225 | Twitter Response Objects |
226 | ------------------------ | |
227 | ||
9ae71d46 | 228 | Response from a Twitter request. Behaves like a list or a string |
51e0b8f1 MV |
229 | (depending on requested format) but it has a few other interesting |
230 | attributes. | |
231 | ||
232 | `headers` gives you access to the response headers as an | |
233 | httplib.HTTPHeaders instance. You can do | |
234 | `response.headers.getheader('h')` to retrieve a header. | |
235 | ||
236 | Authentication | |
237 | -------------- | |
238 | ||
239 | You can authenticate with Twitter in three ways: NoAuth, OAuth, or | |
240 | UserPassAuth. Get help() on these classes to learn how to use them. | |
241 | ||
242 | OAuth is probably the most useful. | |
243 | ||
244 | ||
245 | Working with OAuth | |
246 | ------------------ | |
247 | ||
248 | Visit the Twitter developer page and create a new application: | |
249 | ||
5d5d68cc | 250 | **[https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new](https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new)** |
51e0b8f1 MV |
251 | |
252 | This will get you a CONSUMER_KEY and CONSUMER_SECRET. | |
253 | ||
254 | When users run your application they have to authenticate your app | |
9ae71d46 | 255 | with their Twitter account. A few HTTP calls to Twitter are required |
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256 | to do this. Please see the twitter.oauth_dance module to see how this |
257 | is done. If you are making a command-line app, you can use the | |
258 | oauth_dance() function directly. | |
259 | ||
bcbd4e2b | 260 | Performing the "oauth dance" gets you an oauth token and oauth secret |
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261 | that authenticate the user with Twitter. You should save these for |
262 | later so that the user doesn't have to do the oauth dance again. | |
263 | ||
264 | read_token_file and write_token_file are utility methods to read and | |
265 | write OAuth token and secret key values. The values are stored as | |
266 | strings in the file. Not terribly exciting. | |
267 | ||
268 | Finally, you can use the OAuth authenticator to connect to Twitter. In | |
269 | code it all goes like this:: | |
270 | ||
814d84f5 MG |
271 | ```python |
272 | from twitter import * | |
51e0b8f1 | 273 | |
814d84f5 MG |
274 | MY_TWITTER_CREDS = os.path.expanduser('~/.my_app_credentials') |
275 | if not os.path.exists(MY_TWITTER_CREDS): | |
276 | oauth_dance("My App Name", CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, | |
277 | MY_TWITTER_CREDS) | |
51e0b8f1 | 278 | |
814d84f5 | 279 | oauth_token, oauth_secret = read_token_file(MY_TWITTER_CREDS) |
51e0b8f1 | 280 | |
814d84f5 MG |
281 | twitter = Twitter(auth=OAuth( |
282 | oauth_token, oauth_secret, CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)) | |
51e0b8f1 | 283 | |
814d84f5 | 284 | # Now work with Twitter |
04e76c4d | 285 | twitter.statuses.update(status='Hello, world!') |
814d84f5 | 286 | ``` |
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287 | |
288 | ||
289 | License | |
290 | ======= | |
291 | ||
8be9a740 | 292 | Python Twitter Tools are released under an MIT License. |