README

# Python Twitter

**A Python wrapper around the Twitter API.**

Author: The Python-Twitter Developers <python-twitter@googlegroups.com>

## Introduction

This library provides a pure Python interface for the [Twitter API](https://dev.twitter.com/).

[Twitter](http://twitter.com) provides a service that allows people to connect via the web, IM, and SMS. Twitter exposes a [web services API](http://dev.twitter.com/doc) and this library is intended to make it even easier for Python programmers to use.

## Building

From source:

Install the dependencies:

- [SimpleJson](http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/simplejson)
- [SimpleGeo's OAuth2](http://github.com/simplegeo/python-oauth2) or [OAuth2](http://pypi.python.org/pypi/oauth2)
- [HTTPLib2](http://code.google.com/p/httplib2/) (installed along with `oauth2` if you use `setuptools`)

Alternatively use `pip`:
 
    $ pip install -r requirements.txt

Download the latest `python-twitter` library from: http://code.google.com/p/python-twitter/

Extract the source distribution and run:

```
$ python setup.py build
$ python setup.py install
```

*Testing*

With setuptools installed:

```
$ python setup.py test
```

Without setuptools installed:

```
$ python twitter_test.py
```

## Getting the code

The code is hosted at [Github](https://github.com/bear/python-twitter).

Check out the latest development version anonymously with:

```
 $ git clone git://github.com/bear/python-twitter.git
 $ cd python-twitter
```

## Documentation

View the last release API documentation at: [http://dev.twitter.com/doc](http://dev.twitter.com/doc)

## Using

The library provides a Python wrapper around the Twitter API and the Twitter data model.

**Model:**

The three model classes are twitter.Status, twitter.User, and `twitter.DirectMessage`. The API methods return instances of these classes.

To read the full API for `twitter.Status`, `twitter.User`, or `twitter.DirectMessage`, run:

```
$ pydoc twitter.Status
$ pydoc twitter.User
$ pydoc twitter.DirectMessage
```

*API:*

The API is exposed via the `twitter.Api` class.

To create an instance of the `twitter.Api` class:

```
>>> import twitter
>>> api = twitter.Api()
```

To create an instance of the `twitter.Api` with login credentials (many API calls required the client to be authenticated.)

The python-twitter library now only supports oAuth authentication as the Twitter devs have indicated that OAuth is the only method that will be supported moving forward.

```
>>> api = twitter.Api(consumer_key='consumer_key',
                      consumer_secret='consumer_secret',
                      access_token_key='access_token',
                      access_token_secret='access_token_secret')
```

To see if your credentials are successful:

```
>>> print api.VerifyCredentials()
{"id": 16133, "location": "Philadelphia", "name": "bear"}
```

**NOTE -** much more than the small sample given here will print

To fetch the most recently posted public Twitter status messages:

```
>>> statuses = api.GetPublicTimeline()
>>> print [s.user.name for s in statuses]
[u'DeWitt', u'Kesuke Miyagi', u'ev', u'Buzz Andersen', u'Biz Stone']
```

To fetch a single user's public status messages, where `user` is either
a Twitter *short name* or their user id.

```
>>> statuses = api.GetUserTimeline(user)
>>> print [s.text for s in statuses]
```

To fetch a list a user's friends (requires authentication):

```
>>> users = api.GetFriends()
>>> print [u.name for u in users]
```

To post a Twitter status message (requires authentication):

```
>>> status = api.PostUpdate('I love python-twitter!')
>>> print status.text
I love python-twitter!
```

There are many more API methods, to read the full API documentation:

```
$ pydoc twitter.Api
```

## Todo

Patches and bug reports are [welcome](https://github.com/bear/python-twitter/issues/new), just please keep the style consistent with the original source.

Add more example scripts.

The twitter.Status and `twitter.User` classes are going to be hard to keep in sync with the API if the API changes. More of the code could probably be written with introspection.

Statement coverage of `twitter_test` is only about 80% of twitter.py.

The `twitter.Status` and `twitter.User` classes could perform more validation on the property setters.

## More Information

Please visit [the google group](http://groups.google.com/group/python-twitter) for more discussion.

## Contributors

Additional thanks to Pierre-Jean Coudert, Omar Kilani, Jodok Batlogg, edleaf, glen.tregoning, Brad Choate, Jim Cortez, Jason Lemoine, Thomas Dyson, Robert Laquey, Hameedullah Khan, Mike Taylor, DeWitt Clinton, and the rest of the python-twitter mailing list.

## License

```
Copyright 2007 The Python-Twitter Developers

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the 'License');
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an 'AS IS' BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
```