Net::Twitter and the death of Basic Authentication

On August 31, 2010, Twitter discontinued Basic Authentication.

That means, if you're using a username and password with Net::Twitter or Net::Twitter::Lite, you will get 401 Unauthorized errors attempting to access the Twitter API.

Twitter now requires OAuth authentication for access to the Twitter API. The good news is: Net::Twitter and Net::Twitter::Lite fully support OAuth. So the transition should be as pain free as possible.

For simple, automated scripts, all you need to do is register a twitter application, copy the consumer key and secret and the access_token and secret, and use them instead of username and password.

use Net::Twitter;

my $nt = Net::Twitter->new(
    traits              => [qw/API::REST OAuth/],
    consumer_key        => $YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY,
    consumer_secret     => $YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET,
    access_token        => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN,
    access_token_secret => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET,
);

$nt->update("Bob's your uncle!");

With Net::Twitter::Lite, it's even slightly simpler:

use Net::Twitter::Lite;

my $nt = Net::Twitter::Lite->new(
    consumer_key        => $YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY,
    consumer_secret     => $YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET,
    access_token        => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN,
    access_token_secret => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET,
);

$nt->update("Bob's your uncle!");

Of course, with Net::Twitter::Lite, you don't get all the bells and whistles, like the RetryOnError trait that vanquishes many Fail Whales. Or the InflateObjects trait that turns created_at dates into DateTime objects, and other goodies.

If you have a web application or interactive program that needs to obtain access tokens for multiple users, that's easy, too. See the Net::Twitter examples directory or the Net::Twitter::Lite examples directoryin their respective distributions.

For desktop applications where the normal web OAuth flow, or PIN-code out-of-band flow is not practical, Twitter offers xAuth for exchanging a username and password for access tokens. Access to xAuth is restricted to approved accounts. You can request access by emailing api@twitter.com. Once approved, use the xauth method in Net::Twitter or Net::Twitter::Lite to obtain access tokens:

my ( $token, $secret, $user_id, $screen_name )
    = $nt->xauth($username, $password);

To stay informed, you should:

• Follow @perl_api on Twitter.
• Follow @twitterapi on Twitter.
• Subscribe to the Twitter API Announcements List.

Happy coding.