NAME

Twitter::API - A Twitter REST API library for Perl

Build Status

VERSION

version 1.0006

SYNOPSIS

### Common usage ###

use Twitter::API;
my $client = Twitter::API->new_with_traits(
    traits              => 'Enchilada',
    consumer_key        => $YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY,
    consumer_secret     => $YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET,
    access_token        => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN,
    access_token_secret => $YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET,
);

my $me   = $client->verify_credentials;
my $user = $client->show_user('twitter');

# In list context, both the Twitter API result and a Twitter::API::Context
# object are returned.
my ($r, $context) = $client->home_timeline({ count => 200, trim_user => 1 });
my $remaning = $context->rate_limit_remaining;
my $until    = $context->rate_limit_reset;


### No frills ###

my $client = Twitter::API->new(
    consumer_key    => $YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY,
    consumer_secret => $YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET,
);

my $r = $client->get('account/verify_credentials', {
    -token        => $an_access_token,
    -token_secret => $an_access_token_secret,
});

### Error handling ###

use Twitter::API::Util 'is_twitter_api_error';
use Try::Tiny;

try {
    my $r = $client->verify_credentials;
}
catch {
    die $_ unless is_twitter_api_error($_);

    # The error object includes plenty of information
    say $_->http_request->as_string;
    say $_->http_response->as_string;
    say 'No use retrying right away' if $_->is_permanent_error;
    if ( $_->is_token_error ) {
        say "There's something wrong with this token."
    }
    if ( $_->twitter_error_code == 326 ) {
        say "Oops! Twitter thinks you're spam bot!";
    }
};

DESCRIPTION

Twitter::API provides an interface to the Twitter REST API for perl.

Features:

  • full support for all Twitter REST API endpoints

  • not dependent on a new distribution for new endpoint support

  • optionally specify access tokens per API call

  • error handling via an exception object that captures the full request/response context

  • full support for OAuth handshake and Xauth authentication

Additional features are available via optional traits:

  • convenient methods for API endpoints with simplified argument handling via ApiMethods

  • normalized booleans (Twitter likes 'true' and 'false', except when it doesn't) via NormalizeBooleans

  • automatic decoding of HTML entities via DecodeHtmlEntities

  • automatic retry on transient errors via RetryOnError

  • "the whole enchilada" combines all the above traits via Enchilada

  • app-only (OAuth2) support via AppAuth

  • automatic rate limiting via RateLimiting

Some features are provided by separate distributions to avoid additional dependencies most users won't want or need:

OVERVIEW

Migration from Net::Twitter and Net::Twitter::Lite

Migration support is included to assist users migrating from Net::Twitter and Net::Twitter::Lite. It will be removed from a future release. See Migration for details about migrating your existing Net::Twitter/::Lite applications.

Normal usage

Normally, you will construct a Twitter::API client with some traits, primarily ApiMethods. It provides methods for each known Twitter API endpoint. Documentation is provided for each of those methods in ApiMethods.

See the list of traits in the "DESCRIPTION" and refer to the documentation for each.

Minimalist usage

Without any traits, Twitter::API provides access to API endpoints with the get and post methods described below, as well as methods for managing OAuth authentication. API results are simply perl data structures decoded from the JSON responses. Refer to the Twitter API Documentation for available endpoints, parameters, and responses.

Twitter API V2 Beta Support

Twitter intends to replace the current public API, version 1.1, with version 2.

See https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-api/early-access.

You can use Twitter::API for the V2 beta with the minimalist usage described just above by passing values in the constructor for api_version and api_ext.

my $client = Twitter::API->new_with_traits(
    api_version => '2',
    api_ext     => '',
    %oauth_credentials,
);

my $user = $client->get("users/by/username/$username");

More complete V2 support is anticipated in a future release.

ATTRIBUTES

consumer_key, consumer_secret

Required. Every application has it's own application credentials.

access_token, access_token_secret

Optional. If provided, every API call will be authenticated with these user credentials. See AppAuth for app-only (OAuth2) support, which does not require user credentials. You can also pass options -token and -token_secret to specify user credentials on each API call.

api_url

Optional. Defaults to https://api.twitter.com.

upload_url

Optional. Defaults to https://upload.twitter.com.

api_version

Optional. Defaults to 1.1.

api_ext

Optional. Defaults to .json.

agent

Optional. Used for both the User-Agent and X-Twitter-Client identifiers. Defaults to Twitter-API-$VERSION (Perl).

timeout

Optional. Request timeout in seconds. Defaults to 10.

METHODS

get($url, [ \%args ])

Issues an HTTP GET request to Twitter. If $url is just a path part, e.g., account/verify_credentials, it will be expanded to a full URL by prepending the api_url, api_version and appending .json. A full URL can also be specified, e.g. https://api.twitter.com/1.1/account/verify_credentials.json.

This should accommodate any new API endpoints Twitter adds without requiring an update to this module.

post($url, [ \%args ])

See get above, for a discussion $url. For file upload, pass an array reference as described in https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/HTTP-Message/lib/HTTP/Request/Common.pm#POST-url-Header-Value-...-Content-content.

oauth_request_token([ \%args ])

This is the first step in the OAuth handshake. The only argument expected is callback, which defaults to oob for PIN based verification. Web applications will pass a callback URL.

Returns a hashref that includes oauth_token and oauth_token_secret.

See https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/api-reference/request_token.

oauth_authentication_url(\%args)

This is the second step in the OAuth handshake. The only required argument is oauth_token. Use the value returned by get_request_token. Optional arguments: force_login and screen_name to pre-fill Twitter's authentication form.

See https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/api-reference/authenticate.

oauth_authorization_url(\%args)

Identical to oauth_authentication_url, but uses authorization flow, rather than authentication flow.

See https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/api-reference/authorize.

oauth_access_token(\%ags)

This is the third and final step in the OAuth handshake. Pass the request token, request token_secret obtained in the get_request_token call, and either the PIN number if you used oob for the callback value in get_request_token or the verifier parameter returned in the web callback, as verfier.

See https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/api-reference/access_token.

xauth(\%args)

Requires per application approval from Twitter. Pass username and password.

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

Marc Mims <marc@questright.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2015-2021 by Marc Mims.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.