# The Twitter Ruby Gem
[![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/sferik/twitter.png?branch=master)][travis]
[![Dependency Status](https://gemnasium.com/sferik/twitter.png?travis)][gemnasium]
[![Code Climate](https://codeclimate.com/badge.png)][codeclimate]
[![Click here to make a donation](http://www.pledgie.com/campaigns/18388.png)][pledgie]

[travis]: http://travis-ci.org/sferik/twitter
[gemnasium]: https://gemnasium.com/sferik/twitter
[codeclimate]: https://codeclimate.com/github/sferik/twitter
[pledgie]: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/18388

A Ruby interface to the Twitter API.

## Installation
```sh
gem install twitter
```

Looking for the Twitter command-line interface? It was [removed][] from this
gem in version 0.5.0 and now exists as a [separate project][separate]:

```sh
gem install t
```
[removed]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/commit/dd2445e3e2c97f38b28a3f32ea902536b3897adf
[separate]: https://github.com/sferik/t

## Documentation
[http://rdoc.info/gems/twitter][documentation]

[documentation]: http://rdoc.info/gems/twitter

## Announcements
You should [follow @gem][follow] on Twitter for announcements and updates about
this library.

[follow]: https://twitter.com/gem

## Mailing List
Please direct questions about this library to the [mailing list].

[mailing list]: https://groups.google.com/group/ruby-twitter-gem

## Apps Wiki
Does your project or organization use this gem? Add it to the [apps
wiki][apps]!

[apps]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/wiki/apps

## What's new in version 4?

#### Twitter API v1.1

Version 4 of this library targets Twitter API v1.1. To understand the
implications of this change, please read the following announcements from
Twitter:

* [Changes coming in Version 1.1 of the Twitter API][coming]
* [Current status: API v1.1][status]
* [Overview: Version 1.1 of the Twitter API][overview]

[coming]: https://dev.twitter.com/blog/changes-coming-to-twitter-api
[status]: https://dev.twitter.com/blog/current-status-api-v1.1
[overview]: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/overview

Despite the removal of certain underlying functionality in Twitter API v1.1,
this library aims to preserve backward-compatibility wherever possible. For
example, despite the removal of the [`GET
statuses/retweeted_by_user`][retweeted_by_user] resource, the
`Twitter::API#retweeted_by_user` method continues to exist, implemented by
making multiple requests to the [`GET statuses/user_timeline`][user_timeline]
resource. As a result, there is no longer a one-to-one correlation between
method calls and Twitter API requests. In fact, it's possible for a single
method call to exceed the Twitter API rate limit for a resource. If you think
this might cause a problem for your application, feel free to [join the
discussion][discussion].

[retweeted_by_user]: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1/get/statuses/retweeted_by_user
[user_timeline]: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/statuses/user_timeline
[discussion]: https://dev.twitter.com/discussions/10644

#### Rate Limiting

Another consequence of Twitter API v1.1 is that the
`Twitter::Client#rate_limit` method has been removed, since the concept of a
client-wide rate limit no longer exists. Rate limits are now applied on a
per-resource level, however, since there is no longer a one-to-one mapping
between methods and Twitter API resources, it's not entirely obvious how rate
limit information should be exposed. I've decided to go back to the pre-3.0.0
behavior of including rate limit information on `Twitter::Error` objects.
Here's an example of how to handle rate limits:

```ruby
MAX_ATTEMPTS = 3
num_attempts = 0
begin
  num_attempts += 1
  retweets = Twitter.retweeted_by_user("sferik")
rescue Twitter::Error::TooManyRequests => error
  if num_attempts <= MAX_ATTEMPTS
    # NOTE: Your process could go to sleep for up to 15 minutes but if you
    # retry any sooner, it will almost certainly fail with the same exception.
    sleep error.rate_limit.reset_in
    retry
  else
    raise
  end
end
```
#### Methods Missing

As a consequence of moving to Twitter API v1.1, the following methods from
version 3 are no longer available in version 4:

* `Twitter::API#accept`
* `Twitter::API#deny`
* `Twitter::API#disable_notifications`
* `Twitter::API#enable_notifications`
* `Twitter::API#end_session`
* `Twitter::API#no_retweet_ids`
* `Twitter::API#rate_limit_status`
* `Twitter::API#rate_limited?`
* `Twitter::API#recommendations`
* `Twitter::API#related_results`
* `Twitter::API#retweeted_to_user`
* `Twitter::API#trends_daily`
* `Twitter::API#trends_weekly`
* `Twitter::Client#rate_limit`
* `Twitter::RateLimit#class`

#### Custom Endpoints

The `Twitter::API#update_with_media` method no longer uses the custom
`upload.twitter.com` endpoint, so `media_endpoint` configuration has been
removed. Likewise, the `Twitter::API#search` method no longer uses the custom
`search.twitter.com` endpoint, so `search_endpoint` configuration has also been
removed.

#### Errors

It's worth mentioning new error classes:

* `Twitter::Error::GatewayTimeout`
* `Twitter::Error::TooManyRequests`
* `Twitter::Error::UnprocessableEntity`

In previous versions of this library, rate limit errors were indicated by
raising either `Twitter::Error::BadRequest` or
`Twitter::Error::EnhanceYourCalm` (for the Search API). As of version 4, the
library will raise `Twitter::Error::TooManyRequests` for all rate limit errors.
The `Twitter::Error::EnhanceYourCalm` class has been aliased to
`Twitter::Error::TooManyRequests`.

#### Identity Map

In version 4, the identity map is [disabled by default][disabled]. If you want
to enable this feature, you can use the [default identity map][default] or
[write a custom identity map][custom].

```ruby
Twitter.identity_map = Twitter::IdentityMap
```

[disabled]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/commit/c6c5960bea998abdc3e82cbb8dd68766a2df52e1
[default]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/blob/master/lib/twitter/identity_map.rb
[custom]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/blob/master/etc/sqlite_identity_map.rb

## Configuration

Twitter API v1.1 requires you to authenticate via OAuth, so you'll need a
registered Twitter application. To register a new application, sign-in using
your Twitter account and the fill out the form at
http://dev.twitter.com/apps/new. If you've previously registered a Twitter
application, it will be listed at http://dev.twitter.com/apps. Once you've
registered an application, make sure to set the correct access level, otherwise
you may see the error:

    Read-only application cannot POST

Your new application will be assigned a consumer key/secret pair and you will
be assigned an OAuth access token/secret pair for that application. You'll need
to configure these values before you make a request or else you'll get the
error:

    Bad Authentication data

Applications that make requests on behalf of a single Twitter user can pass
global configuration options as a block to the `Twitter.configure` method.

```ruby
Twitter.configure do |config|
  config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
  config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
  config.oauth_token = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN
  config.oauth_token_secret = YOUR_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
end
```

Alternately, you can set the following environment variables:

```sh
TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY
TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET
TWITTER_OAUTH_TOKEN
TWITTER_OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET
```

After configuration, requests can be made like so:

```ruby
Twitter.update("I'm tweeting with @gem!")
```

#### Thread Safety

Applications that make requests on behalf of multiple Twitter users should
avoid using global configuration. In this case, you may still specify the
`consumer_key` and `consumer_secret` globally. (In a Rails application, this
could go in `config/initializers/twitter.rb`.)

```ruby
Twitter.configure do |config|
  config.consumer_key = YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY
  config.consumer_secret = YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET
end
```

Then, for each user's access token/secret pair, instantiate a
`Twitter::Client`:

```ruby
@client_erik = Twitter::Client.new(
  :oauth_token => "Erik's access token",
  :oauth_token_secret => "Erik's access secret"
)

@client_john = Twitter::Client.new(
  :oauth_token => "John's access token",
  :oauth_token_secret => "John's access secret"
)
```

You can now make threadsafe requests as the authenticated user:

```ruby
Thread.new{@client_erik.update("Tweeting as Erik!")}
Thread.new{@client_john.update("Tweeting as John!")}
```

Or, if you prefer, you can specify all configuration options when instantiating
a `Twitter::Client`:

```ruby
@client = Twitter::Client.new(
  :consumer_key => "an application's consumer key",
  :consumer_secret => "an application's consumer secret",
  :oauth_token => "a user's access token",
  :oauth_token_secret => "a user's access secret"
)
```

This may be useful if you're using multiple consumer key/secret pairs.

#### Middleware

The Faraday middleware stack is fully configurable and is exposed as a
`Faraday::Builder` object. You can modify the default middleware in-place:

```ruby
Twitter.middleware.insert_after Twitter::Response::RaiseClientError, CustomMiddleware
```

A custom adapter may be set as part of a custom middleware stack:

```ruby
Twitter.middleware = Faraday::Builder.new(
  &Proc.new do |builder|
    # Specify a middleware stack here
    builder.adapter :some_other_adapter
  end
)
```

## Usage Examples
All examples require an authenticated Twitter client. See the section on <a
href="#configuration">configuration</a> above.

**Tweet (as the authenticated user)**

```ruby
Twitter.update("I'm tweeting with @gem!")
```
**Follow a user (by screen name or user ID)**

```ruby
Twitter.follow("gem")
Twitter.follow(213747670)
```
**Fetch a user (by screen name or user ID)**

```ruby
Twitter.user("gem")
Twitter.user(213747670)
```
**Fetch a cursored list of followers with profile details (by screen name or user ID, or by implict authenticated user)**

```ruby
Twitter.followers("gem")
Twitter.followers(213747670)
Twitter.followers
```
**Fetch a cursored list of friends with profile details (by screen name or user ID, or by implict authenticated user)**

```ruby
Twitter.friends("gem")
Twitter.friends(213747670)
Twitter.friends
```
**Fetch the timeline of Tweets by a user**

```ruby
Twitter.user_timeline("gem")
Twitter.user_timeline(213747670)
```
**Fetch the timeline of Tweets from the authenticated user's home page**

```ruby
Twitter.home_timeline
```
**Fetch the timeline of Tweets mentioning the authenticated user**

```ruby
Twitter.mentions_timeline
```
**Fetch a particular Tweet by ID**

```ruby
Twitter.status(27558893223)
```
**Find the 3 most recent marriage proposals to @justinbieber**

```ruby
Twitter.search("to:justinbieber marry me", :count => 3, :result_type => "recent").results.map do |status|
  "#{status.from_user}: #{status.text}"
end
```
**Find a Japanese-language Tweet tagged #ruby (excluding retweets)**

```ruby
Twitter.search("#ruby -rt", :lang => "ja", :count => 1).results.first.text
```
For more usage examples, please see the full [documentation][].

## Streaming

To access the Twitter Streaming API, we recommend [TweetStream][].

[tweetstream]: https://github.com/intridea/tweetstream

## Performance
You can improve performance by loading a faster JSON parsing library. By
default, JSON will be parsed with [okjson][]. For faster JSON parsing, we
recommend [Oj][].

[okjson]: https://github.com/ddollar/okjson
[oj]: https://rubygems.org/gems/oj

## Statistics

Here are some fun facts about this library:

* It is implemented in just 2,000 lines of Ruby code
* With over 4,000 lines of specs, the spec-to-code ratio is over 2:1
* The spec suite contains over 700 examples and runs in about 5 seconds
* It has 100% C0 code coverage (the tests execute every line of
  source code at least once)
* It is comprehensive: you can request all documented Twitter REST API
  resources (over 100 resources)
* This gem works on every major Ruby implementation, including JRuby and
  Rubinius
* The first version was released on November 26, 2006
* This gem has just three runtime dependencies: `faraday`, `multi_json`, and
  `simple_oauth`
* Previous versions of this gem have been [downloaded over half a million
  times][stats]

[stats]: https://rubygems.org/gems/twitter

## Supported Ruby Versions
This library aims to support and is [tested against][travis] the following Ruby
version:

* Ruby 1.8.7
* Ruby 1.9.2
* Ruby 1.9.3

This library may inadvertently work (or seem to work) on other Ruby
implementations, however support will only be provided for the versions listed
above.

If you would like this library to support another Ruby version, you may
volunteer to be a maintainer. Being a maintainer entails making sure all tests
run and pass on that implementation. When something breaks on your
implementation, you will be personally responsible for providing patches in a
timely fashion. If critical issues for a particular implementation exist at the
time of a major release, support for that Ruby version may be dropped.

## Versioning

This library aims to adhere to [Semantic Versioning 2.0.0][semver]. Violations
of this scheme should be reported as bugs. Specifically, if a minor or patch
version is released that breaks backward compatibility, that version should be
immediately yanked and/or a new version should be immediately released that
restores compatibility. Breaking changes to the public API will only be
introduced with new major versions. As a result of this policy, you can (and
should) specify a dependency on this gem using the [Pessimistic Version
Constraint][pvc] with two digits of precision. For example:

    spec.add_dependency 'twitter', '~> 4.0'

[semver]: http://semver.org/
[pvc]: http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/16#page74

## Additional Notes
This will be the last major version of this library to support Ruby 1.8.
Requiring Ruby 1.9 will allow us to [remove][class_variable_get]
[various][each_with_object] [hacks][singleton_class] put in place to maintain
Ruby 1.8 compatibility. [The first stable version of Ruby 1.9 was released on
August 19, 2010.][ruby192] If you haven't found the opportunity to upgrade your
Ruby interpreter since then, let this be your nudge. Once version 5 of this
library is released, all previous versions will cease to be supported, even if
critical security vulnerabilities are discovered.

[class_variable_get]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/commit/88c5a0513d1b58a1d4ae1a1e3deeb012c9d19547
[each_with_object]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/commit/6052252a07baf7aefe0f100bba0abd2cbb7139bb
[singleton_class]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/commit/2ed9db21c87d1218b15373e42a36ad536b07dcbb
[ruby192]: http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/367983

## Copyright
Copyright (c) 2006-2012 John Nunemaker, Wynn Netherland, Erik Michaels-Ober, Steve Richert.
See [LICENSE][] for details.

[license]: https://github.com/sferik/twitter/blob/master/LICENSE.md