twitter.py

import urllib
import logging
from google.appengine.api import urlfetch
from google.appengine.api import memcache
from django.utils import simplejson

def search_tweets(**request_params):
    url = u'http://search.twitter.com/search.json?%s'
    default_params = { 'q': 'linux', 'rpp': 10 }
    default_params.update(request_params)
    return api_request(url, 300, **default_params)

def api_request(url, cache_time, **params):
    request_url = url % urllib.urlencode(params)
    if cache_time != 0:
        # try to load from cache
        cache_id = request_url.encode('base64')
        result = memcache.get(cache_id)
        if result is not None:
            return result
    try:
        result = urlfetch.fetch(request_url)
        if result.status_code == 200:
            result = simplejson.loads(result.content)
            if cache_time != 0:
                memcache.set(cache_id, result, cache_time)
            return result
        elif result.status_code == 400:
            logging.debug('Twitter API limit exceeded')
    except:
        logging.error('Twitter API call not successful')
        return False

if __name__ == "__main__":
    get_tweets()