A Ruby wrapper for the Twitter REST and Search APIs
gem install twitter
You should follow @gem on Twitter for announcements, updates, and news about the twitter gem.
https://groups.google.com/group/ruby-twitter-gem
Add it to the apps wiki!
This version no longer requires that you explicitly pass the authenticated user's ID or screen name.
Pre-1.1
Twitter.configure do |config|
config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
config.oauth_token = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN
config.oauth_token_secret = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
end
Twitter.user("sferik")
Post-1.1
Twitter.configure do |config|
config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
config.oauth_token = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN
config.oauth_token_secret = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
end
Twitter.user
This gem has been completely rewritten for version 1.0 thanks to contributions from numerous people. This rewrite breaks compatibility with version 0.9.12 and earlier versions of the gem. Most notably, the Twitter::Base, Twitter:Geo, Twitter::LocalTrends, and Twitter::Trends classes have all been merged into the Twitter::Client class. Whenever possible, we display deprecation warnings and forward method calls to the Twitter::Client class. In a handful of cases, method names were changed to resolve namespace conflicts.
Pre-1.0
Twitter::Base.new.user("sferik").name
Post-1.0
Twitter::Client.new.user("sferik").name
The Twitter::Search class has remained largely the same, however it no longer accepts a query in its constructor. You can specify a query using the #containing method, which is aliased to #q.
Pre-1.0
Twitter::Search.new("query").fetch.first.text
Post-1.0
Twitter::Search.new.q("query").fetch.first.text
The error classes have gone through a transformation to make them consistent with Twitter's documented response codes. These changes should make it easier to rescue from specific errors and take action accordingly. We've also added support for two new classes of error returned by the Twitter Search API.
| Response Code | Pre-1.0 | Post-1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| 400 | Twitter::RateLimitExceeded | Twitter::BadRequest |
| 401 | Twitter::Unauthorized | Twitter::Unauthorized |
| 403 | Twitter::General | Twitter::Forbidden |
| 404 | Twitter::NotFound | Twitter::NotFound |
| 406 | N/A | Twitter::NotAcceptable |
| 420 | N/A | Twitter::EnhanceYourCalm |
| 500 | Twitter::InformTwitter | Twitter::InternalServerError |
| 502 | Twitter::Unavailable | Twitter::BadGateway |
| 503 | Twitter::Unavailable | Twitter::ServiceUnavailable |
Additionally, the Twitter::OAuth class has been removed. This class was just a wrapper to get access tokens via the oauth gem. Given that there are a variety of gems that do the same thing (twitter-auth, omniauth, and devise, to name a few) we decided to decouple this functionality so you can use whichever authentication library you prefer, or none at all. If you would like to see how to use the omniauth gem for authentication, Erik Michaels-Ober maintains a simple Rails application that demonstrates how to do so.
The public APIs defined in version 1.0 of this gem will maintain backwards compatibility until the next major version, following the best practice of Semantic Versioning. You are free to continue using the 0.9 series of the gem; however, it will not be maintained so upgrading to 1.0 is strongly recommended.
Here are a few more reasons to upgrade to 1.0:
- Full Ruby 1.9 compatibility: All code and specs now work in the latest version of Ruby
- Support for HTTP proxies: Access Twitter from China, Iran, or inside your office firewall
- Support for multiple HTTP adapters: NetHttp (default), Typhoeus, Patron, or ActionDispatch
- Support for multiple Twitter response formats: JSON (default) or XML
- More flexible: Parse JSON or XML with the engine of your choosing via MultiJSON and MultiXML
- More RESTful: Uses HTTP DELETE (instead of POST) when requesting destructive resources
- More methods: Request any documented resource in the Twitter API, including all #newtwitter resources
- SSL: On by default for increased speed and security
- Improved error handling: More easily rescue from rate-limit errors or fail whales
You can improve performance by preloading a faster JSON or XML parsing library. By default, the JSON will be parsed with okjson and XML will be parsed with REXML. For faster JSON parsing, we recommend yajl-ruby and for faster XML parsing, we recommend libxml-ruby or nokogiri.
require "rubygems"
require "twitter"
# Get a user's location
puts Twitter.user("sferik").location
# Get a user's most recent status update
puts Twitter.user_timeline("sferik").first.text
# Get a status update by id
puts Twitter.status(27558893223).text
# Initialize a Twitter search client
search = Twitter::Search.new
# Find the 3 most recent marriage proposals to @justinbieber
search.containing("marry me").to("justinbieber").result_type("recent").per_page(3).each do |r|
puts "#{r.from_user}: #{r.text}"
end
# Enough about Justin Bieber
search.clear
# Let's find a Japanese-language tweet tagged #ruby
puts search.hashtag("ruby").language("ja").no_retweets.per_page(1).fetch.first.text
# And another
puts search.fetch_next_page.first.text
# Certain methods require authentication. To get your Twitter OAuth credentials,
# register an app at http://dev.twitter.com/apps
Twitter.configure do |config|
config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
config.oauth_token = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN
config.oauth_token_secret = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
end
# Update your status
Twitter.update("I'm tweeting with @gem!")
# Read the most recent tweet in your home timeline
puts Twitter.home_timeline.first.text
# Who's your most popular friend?
puts Twitter.friends.users.sort{|a, b| a.followers_count <=> b.followers_count}.reverse.first.name
# Who's your most popular follower?
puts Twitter.followers.users.sort{|a, b| a.followers_count <=> b.followers_count}.reverse.first.name
# Get your rate limit status
puts Twitter.rate_limit_status.remaining_hits.to_s + " Twitter API request(s) remaining this hour"
Use of API proxy services such as APIgee (http://apigee.com) can allow for increased rate limits to the Twitter API.
APIgee configuration example
For APIgee set the configuration gateway with your APIgee hostname
Twitter.configure do |config|
config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
config.oauth_token = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN
config.oauth_token_secret = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
config.gateway = YOUR_APIGEE_HOSTNAME # e.g 'twitter.apigee.com'
end
In the spirit of free software, everyone is encouraged to help improve this project.
Here are some ways you can contribute:
- by using alpha, beta, and prerelease versions
- by reporting bugs
- by suggesting new features
- by writing or editing documentation
- by writing specifications
- by writing code (no patch is too small: fix typos, add comments, clean up inconsistent whitespace)
- by refactoring code
- by closing issues
- by reviewing patches
- financially
All contributors will be added to the HISTORY file and will receive the respect and gratitude of the community.
We use the GitHub issue tracker to track bugs and features. Before submitting a bug report or feature request, check to make sure it hasn't already been submitted. You can indicate support for an existing issuse by voting it up. When submitting a bug report, please include a Gist that includes a stack trace and any details that may be necessary to reproduce the bug, including your gem version, Ruby version, and operating system. Ideally, a bug report should include a pull request with failing specs.
- Fork the project.
- Create a topic branch.
- Implement your feature or bug fix.
- Add documentation for your feature or bug fix.
- Run bundle exec rake doc:yard. If your changes are not 100% documented, go back to step 4.
- Add specs for your feature or bug fix.
- Run bundle exec rake spec. If your changes are not 100% covered, go back to step 6.
- Commit and push your changes.
- Submit a pull request. Please do not include changes to the gemspec, version, or history file. (If you want to create your own version for some reason, please do so in a separate commit.)
This library aims to support and is tested against the following Ruby implementations:
- Ruby 1.8.7
- Ruby 1.9.1
- Ruby 1.9.2
- JRuby
- Rubinius
- Ruby Enterprise Edition
If something doesn't work on one of these interpreters, it should be considered a bug.
This library may inadvertently work (or seem to work) on other Ruby implementations, however support will only be provided for the versions listed above.
If you would like this library to support another Ruby version, you may volunteer to be a maintainer. Being a maintainer entails making sure all tests run and pass on that implementation. When something breaks on your implementation, you will be personally responsible for providing patches in a timely fashion. If critical issues for a particular implementation exist at the time of a major release, support for that Ruby version may be dropped.
Copyright (c) 2010 John Nunemaker, Wynn Netherland, Erik Michaels-Ober, Steve Richert. See LICENSE for details.