The TwitterSearch class¶
This class contains the actual functionality of this library. It is responsible for correctly transmitting your data to the Twitter API and returning the results to your program afterwards.
If you’re looking for the exceptions thrown by this class based on the HTTP status, please read the article about TwitterSearchException.
Available methods¶
| Method | Description | Example |
setProxy(<dict>) |
Sets a proxy. Because only HTTPS requests are done, it’s sufficient to only input a dict containing a https entry |
setProxy({'https':'10.0.0.1:123'}) |
authenticate(verify=<boolean>) |
Creates an authenticated oauth2 client and if verify is true, it also checkes if the user credentials are valid. The default value is True |
authenticate(), authenticate(True) |
searchTweetsIterable(<TwitterSearchOrder>) |
Queries the Twitter API, iterates through tweets and reloads available older tweets automatically | see Basic usage |
searchTweets(<TwitterSearchOrder>) |
Queries the Twitter API without iterating or reloading of further results and returns response | see Advanced usage |
sentSearch(<string>) |
Queries the Twitter Search API with a given query string, determines if there are more results available in API and returns response. | sentSearch('?q=One+Two&count=100') |
searchNextResults() |
Queries the API for more tweets and returns response | see Advanced usage |
getMetadata() |
Returns a dict of meta information about the last query | see Advanced usage |
getTweets() |
Returns a dict of all tweets returned by last query | see Advanced usage |
getStatistics() |
Returns a dict of the type { 'queries' : <int>, 'tweets' : <int> } with statistical values about the number of queries and the sum of all tweets recieved by this very instance of TwitterSearch |
print "Queries done %i / Tweets received %i" % (ts.getStatistics()['queries'], ts.getStatistics()['tweets']) |
checkHTTPStatus(<int>) |
Checks if given HTTP status code is in TwitterSearch.exceptions and raises TwitterSearchException if this is the case |
checkHTTPStatus(200), checkHTTPStatus(401) |
setSupportedLanguages(<TwitterSearchOrder>) |
Loads currently supported languages from Twitter and stores them in a TwitterSearchOrder instance |
see Advanced usage |
The methods next(), __next__() and __iter__() are used during the iteration process. For more information about those methods please consult the official Python documentation.
Constructor¶
The constructor needed to set your credentials for the Twitter API. The parameters are __init__( consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret, verify=True).
If you’re new to Python take a look at the following example:
ts1 = TwitterSearch(
consumer_key = 'aaabbb',
consumer_secret = 'cccddd',
access_token = '111222',
access_token_secret = '333444'
)
# equals
ts2 = TwitterSearch('aaabbb', 'cccddd', '111222', '333444', verify=True)
Authentication and verification¶
Please be aware that there is no further check whether or not your credentials are valid if you set verify=False in the constructor. If you’re skipping the verification process of TwitterSearch you can avoid some traffic and one query (which is also rate-limited by Twitter).
But be aware that you’re only saving one request at all by avoiding the automatic verification process. Due to the fact that json doesn’t consume much traffic at all, this may only be a way for very conservative developers or some exotic scenarios.
Returned tweets¶
TwitterSearch is trying to not hide anything from your eyes except the complexity of it’s functions. Due to this you’re able to get all the information available (which can be quite a lot).
Example output with only one tweet included:
{'search_metadata': {'completed_in': 0.08,
'count': 1,
'max_id': 352072665667878913,
'max_id_str': '352072665667878913',
'next_results': '?max_id=352072665667878912&q=Germany%20castle&count=1&include_entities=1',
'query': 'Germany+castle',
'refresh_url': '?since_id=352072665667878913&q=Germany%20castle&include_entities=1',
'since_id': 0,
'since_id_str': '0'},
'statuses': [
{'contributors': None,
'coordinates': None,
'created_at': 'Tue Jul 02 14:33:59 +0000 2013',
'entities': {'hashtags': [],
'media': [{'display_url': 'pic.twitter.com/Oz77FLEong',
'expanded_url': 'http://twitter.com/ThatsEarth/status/351839174887870464/photo/1',
'id': 351839174896259072,
'id_str': '351839174896259072',
'indices': [117, 139],
'media_url': 'http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOH73Y3CEAAldKU.jpg',
'media_url_https': 'https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BOH73Y3CEAAldKU.jpg',
'sizes': {'large': {'h': 639,
'resize': 'fit',
'w': 960},
'medium': {'h': 399,
'resize': 'fit',
'w': 600},
'small': {'h': 226,
'resize': 'fit',
'w': 340},
'thumb': {'h': 150,
'resize': 'crop',
'w': 150}},
'source_status_id': 351839174887870464,
'source_status_id_str': '351839174887870464',
'type': 'photo',
'url': 'http://t.co/Oz77FLEong'}],
'symbols': [],
'urls': [],
'user_mentions': [{'id': 118504288,
'id_str': '118504288',
'indices': [0, 11],
'name': 'Josh Dallas',
'screen_name': 'joshdallas'},
{'id': 298250825,
'id_str': '298250825',
'indices': [12, 25],
'name': 'Ginnifer Goodwin',
'screen_name': 'ginnygoodwin'},
{'id': 1201661238,
'id_str': '1201661238',
'indices': [49, 60],
'name': 'Earth Pics',
'screen_name': 'ThatsEarth'}]},
'favorite_count': 0,
'favorited': False,
'geo': None,
'id': 352072665667878913,
'id_str': '352072665667878913',
'in_reply_to_screen_name': 'joshdallas',
'in_reply_to_status_id': None,
'in_reply_to_status_id_str': None,
'in_reply_to_user_id': 118504288,
'in_reply_to_user_id_str': '118504288',
'lang': 'en',
'metadata': {'iso_language_code': 'en',
'result_type': 'recent'},
'place': None,
'possibly_sensitive': False,
'retweet_count': 0,
'retweeted': False,
'source': '<a href="http://twitter.com/download/android" rel="nofollow">Twitter for Android</a>',
'text': '@joshdallas @ginnygoodwin home during wintertime"@ThatsEarth: Hohenzollern Castle floating above the Clouds,Germany. http://t.co/Oz77FLEong"',
'truncated': False,
'user': {'contributors_enabled': False,
'created_at': 'Fri Aug 14 09:15:27 +0000 2009',
'default_profile': False,
'default_profile_image': False,
'description': 'Scorpio. 23. MBA Graduate.',
'entities': {'description': {'urls': []},
'url': {'urls': [{'display_url': 'fanfiction.net/u/4764512/',
'expanded_url': 'http://www.fanfiction.net/u/4764512/',
'indices': [0,
22],
'url': 'http://t.co/sEKQ1M85H2'}]}},
'favourites_count': 114,
'follow_request_sent': False,
'followers_count': 300,
'following': False,
'friends_count': 229,
'geo_enabled': False,
'id': 65599486,
'id_str': '65599486',
'is_translator': False,
'lang': 'en',
'listed_count': 0,
'location': 'Kuwait',
'name': 'Amal Behbehani',
'notifications': False,
'profile_background_color': 'DBE9ED',
'profile_background_image_url': 'http://a0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/317569734/tumblr_lqc4ttwuJm1qclkveo1_500.jpg',
'profile_background_image_url_https': 'https://si0.twimg.com/profile_background_images/317569734/tumblr_lqc4ttwuJm1qclkveo1_500.jpg',
'profile_background_tile': True,
'profile_banner_url': 'https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/65599486/1372576102',
'profile_image_url': 'http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/3763288269/57c274f19592f6d190957d8eb86c64f1_normal.png',
'profile_image_url_https': 'https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/3763288269/57c274f19592f6d190957d8eb86c64f1_normal.png',
'profile_link_color': 'CC3366',
'profile_sidebar_border_color': 'DBE9ED',
'profile_sidebar_fill_color': 'E6F6F9',
'profile_text_color': '333333',
'profile_use_background_image': True,
'protected': False,
'screen_name': 'TigeyGirl',
'statuses_count': 18891,
'time_zone': 'Santiago',
'url': 'http://t.co/sEKQ1M85H2',
'utc_offset': -14400,
'verified': False}}]}
Have a look at the entities documented by Twitter to figure out what a specific key-value tuple does exactly mean.
Advanced usage¶
Sometime the default use-case is not sufficient and you may like to use TwitterSearch in unusual scenarios.
Access meta data¶
An output of the available meta data from the query to the Twitter API is stored in a dict. You can access it by calling getMetadata() which will return all meta information about the last query.
Example:
{
'content-length': '467129',
'x-rate-limit-reset': '1372773784',
'x-rate-limit-remaining': '170',
'x-xss-protection': '1; mode=block',
'cache-control': 'no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, post-check=0',
'status': '200',
'transfer-encoding': 'chunked',
'set-cookie': 'lang=de, guest_id=v1%!xxx; Domain=.twitter.com; Path=/; Expires=Thu, 01-Jul-2013 14:02:32 UTC',
'expires': 'Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT',
'x-access-level': 'read',
'last-modified': 'Tue, 01 Jul 2013 14:02:32 GMT',
'-content-encoding': 'gzip',
'pragma': 'no-cache',
'date': 'Tue, 01 Jul 2013 14:02:32 GMT',
'x-rate-limit-limit': '180',
'content-location': u'https://api.twitter.com/1.1/search/tweets.json?count=100&oauth_body_hash=xxx&oauth_nonce=xxx&oauth_timestamp=xxx&oauth_consumer_key=xxx&oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1&q=Germany+castle&oauth_version=1.0&oauth_token=xxx&oauth_signature=xxx',
'x-transaction': 'xxx',
'strict-transport-security': 'max-age=631138519',
'server': 'tfe',
'x-frame-options': 'SAMEORIGIN',
'content-type': 'application/json;charset=utf-8'
}
Be careful about those data as it contains sensible data as you can see in getMetadata()['content-location']. Do NOT save or output those information to insecure environments!
TwitterSearch without iteration¶
It is also perfectly possible to use TwitterSearch without the iteration and to query the Twitter API all by yourself. For example you may like to implement the suggest max_id procedure of Twitter to access the API directly and don’t trust the library to do this automatically on it’s own.
A possible solution could look like this:
from TwitterSearch import *
try:
tso = TwitterSearchOrder()
tso.setKeywords(['Germany', 'castle'])
ts = TwitterSearch('aaabbb', 'cccddd', '111222', '333444')
# init variables needed in loop
todo = True
next_max_id = 0
# let's start the action
while(todo):
# first query the Twitter API
response = ts.searchTweets(tso)
# print rate limiting status
print "Current rate-limiting status: %i" % rs.getMetadata()['x-rate-limit-reset']
# check if there are statuses returned and whether we still have work to do
todo = not len(response['content']['statuses']) == 0
# check all tweets according to their ID
for tweet in response['content']['statuses']:
tweet_id = tweet['id']
print("Seen tweet with ID %i" % tweet_id)
# current ID is lower than current next_max_id?
if (tweet_id < next_max_id) or (next_max_id == 0):
next_max_id = tweet_id
next_max_id -= 1 # decrement to avoid seeing this tweet again
# set lowest ID as MaxID
tso.setMaxID(next_max_id)
except TwitterSearchException as e:
print(e)
On-the-fly loading of supported languages¶
As you may have figured out some languages are not supported by Twitter and those that are may change over time. This is why Twitter does provide an endpoint to load all currently supported languages. You may query it to gather current information about the languages in Twitter.
from TwitterSearch import *
try:
tso = TwitterSearchOrder()
ts = TwitterSearch('aaabbb', 'cccddd', '111222', '333444')
# load currently supported languages by Twitter and store them in a TwitterSearchOrder object
ts.setSupportedLanguages(tso)
# try to set German (see ISO 639-1) as language
ts.setLanguage('de')
print('German seems to be officially supported by Twitter. Yay!')
except TwitterSearchException as e:
# if we get an 1002 code it means that 'de' is not supported (see TwitterSearchException)
if e.code == 1002:
print('Oh no - German is not supported :(')
print(e)