twitter-ng

Asynchronous Twitter client API for node.js

twitter-ng is an improved version of AvianFlu's ntwitter which is based on jdub's node-twitter, which in turn was inspired by, and uses some code from, technoweenie's twitter-node.

Installation

You can install twitter-ng and its dependencies with npm: npm install twitter-ng.

Setup API

The keys listed below can be obtained from dev.twitter.com after setting up a new App.

var twitter = require('twitter-ng');

var twit = new twitter({
  consumer_key: 'Twitter',
  consumer_secret: 'API',
  access_token_key: 'keys',
  access_token_secret: 'go here'
});

Obtaining Access Token

This example assumes that you use express.

app.get('/twitter_signin', restrict, function(req, res, next) {
  var twit = new twitter({
    consumer_key: 'KEY',
    consumer_secret: 'SECRET',
    oauth_callback: 'https://example.org/twitter_callback'
  });
  twit.login()(req, res, next);

});
app.get('/twitter_callback', restrict, function(req, res){
  var twit = new twitter({
    consumer_key: 'KEY',
    consumer_secret: 'SECRET',
  });
  twit.callback()(req, res, function() {
    console.log("Access Token: " + req.session.oauth_access_token);
    console.log("Access Token Secret: " + req.session.oauth_access_token_secret);
  });
});

REST API

Interaction with other parts of Twitter is accomplished through their RESTful API. The best documentation for this exists at dev.twitter.com. Convenience methods exist for many of the available methods, but some may be more up-to-date than others. If your Twitter interaction is very important, double-check the parameters in the code with Twitter's current documentation.

Note that all functions may be chained:

twit
  .verifyCredentials(function (err, data) {
    console.log(data);
  })
  .updateStatus('Test tweet from twitter-ng/' + twitter.VERSION,
    function (err, data) {
      console.log(data);
    }
  );

Streaming API

The stream() callback receives a Stream-like EventEmitter.

Here is an example of how to call the statuses/sample method:

twit.stream('statuses/sample', function(stream) {
  stream.on('data', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
  });
});

Here is an example of how to call the 'statuses/filter' method with a bounding box over San Fransisco and New York City ( see streaming api for more details on locations ):

twit.stream('statuses/filter', {'locations':'-122.75,36.8,-121.75,37.8,-74,40,-73,41'}, function(stream) {
  stream.on('data', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
  });
});

twitter-ng also supports user and site streams:

twit.stream('user', {track:'nodejs'}, function(stream) {
  stream.on('data', function (data) {
    console.log(data);
  });
  stream.on('end', function (response) {
    // Handle a disconnection
  });
  stream.on('destroy', function (response) {
    // Handle a 'silent' disconnection from Twitter, no end/error event fired
  });
  // Disconnect stream after five seconds
  setTimeout(stream.destroy, 5000);
});

Contributors

Lots of people contribute to this project. You should too!

TODO

• Complete the convenience functions, preferably generated
• Support recommended reconnection behaviour for the streaming APIs
• Better support for rate limiting.