Twython
is the premier Python library providing an easy (and up-to-date) way to access Twitter data. Actively maintained and featuring support for Python 2.6+ and Python 3. It's been battle tested by companies, educational institutions and individuals alike. Try it today!
- Query data for:
- User information
- Twitter lists
- Timelines
- Direct Messages
- and anything found in the docs
- Image Uploading:
- Update user status with an image
- Change user avatar
- Change user background image
- Change user banner image
- OAuth 2 Application Only (read-only) Support
- Support for Twitter's Streaming API
- Seamless Python 3 support!
Install Twython via pip
$ pip install twython
or, with easy_install
$ easy_install twython
But, hey... that's up to you.
Or, if you want the code that is currently on GitHub
git clone git://github.com/ryanmcgrath/twython.git
cd twython
python setup.py install
Documentation is available at https://twython.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
First, you'll want to head over to https://dev.twitter.com/apps and register an application!
After you register, grab your applications Consumer Key
and Consumer Secret
from the application details tab.
The most common type of authentication is Twitter user authentication using OAuth 1. If you're a web app planning to have users sign up with their Twitter account and interact with their timelines, updating their status, and stuff like that this is the authentication for you!
First, you'll want to import Twython
from twython import Twython
Now, you'll want to create a Twython instance with your Consumer Key
and Consumer Secret
Only pass callback_url to get_authentication_tokens if your application is a Web Application
Desktop and Mobile Applications do not require a callback_url
APP_KEY = 'YOUR_APP_KEY'
APP_SECRET = 'YOUR_APP_SECRET'
twitter = Twython(APP_KEY, APP_SECRET)
auth = twitter.get_authentication_tokens(callback_url='http://mysite.com/callback')
From the auth
variable, save the oauth_token
and oauth_token_secret
for later use (these are not the final auth tokens). In Django or other web frameworks, you might want to store it to a session variable
OAUTH_TOKEN = auth['oauth_token']
OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET = auth['oauth_token_secret']
Send the user to the authentication url, you can obtain it by accessing
auth['auth_url']
If your application is a Desktop or Mobile Application oauth_verifier will be the PIN code
After they authorize your application to access some of their account details, they'll be redirected to the callback url you specified in get_autentication_tokens
You'll want to extract the oauth_verifier
from the url.
Django example:
oauth_verifier = request.GET['oauth_verifier']
Now that you have the oauth_verifier
stored to a variable, you'll want to create a new instance of Twython and grab the final user tokens
twitter = Twython(APP_KEY, APP_SECRET,
OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET)
final_step = twitter.get_authorized_tokens(oauth_verifier)
Once you have the final user tokens, store them in a database for later use!:
OAUTH_TOKEN = final_step['oauth_token'] OAUTH_TOKEN_SECERT = final_step['oauth_token_secret']
For OAuth 2 (Application Only, read-only) authentication, see our documentation
Keyword arguments to functions are mapped to the functions available for each endpoint in the Twitter API docs. Doing this allows us to be incredibly flexible in querying the Twitter API, so changes to the API aren't held up from you using them by this library.
Function definitions (i.e. get_home_timeline()) can be found by reading over twython/endpoints.py
Create a Twython instance with your application keys and the users OAuth tokens
from twython import Twython
twitter = Twython(APP_KEY, APP_SECRET,
OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET)
Documentation: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/statuses/home_timeline
twitter.get_home_timeline()
This method makes use of dynamic arguments, read more about them
Documentation: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1/post/statuses/update
twitter.update_status(status='See how easy using Twython is!')
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/search/tweets says it takes "q" and "result_type" amongst other arguments
twitter.search(q='twitter')
twitter.search(q='twitter', result_type='popular')
- Twython 3.0.0 has been injected with 1000mgs of pure awesomeness! OAuth 2 application authentication is now supported. And a whole lot more! See the CHANGELOG for more details!
My hope is that Twython is so simple that you'd never have to ask any questions, but if you feel the need to contact me for this (or other) reasons, you can hit me up at [email protected].
Or if I'm to busy to answer, feel free to ping [email protected] as well.
Follow us on Twitter:
Twython is useful, but ultimately only as useful as the people using it (say that ten times fast!). If you'd like to help, write example code, contribute patches, document things on the wiki, tweet about it. Your help is always appreciated!