node-twitter aims to provide a complete, asynchronous client library for the Twitter API, including the REST, search and streaming endpoints. It's a fork of @jdub's twitter-node which was inspired by, and used some code from, @technoweenie's twitter-node.
This library pre-1.x is comprised of patterns and an API that has been mostly un-changed since its inception. The 1.x branch is an effort to:
- Introduce a more standard callback pattern desmondmorris#23
- Support for all 1.1 and future endpoints
- Add test coverage (Planned)
- Add better examples and documentation (Planned)
There are two major changes in 1.x:
An updated callback pattern
This has been the most popular feature request in this project and rightfully so.
The new callback pattern is as follows:
/**
* I am a callback.
*
* error An error object
* body The payload from the API request
* response The raw response object from the oauth request. We will keep this in case folks are using it in some way.
*/
function(error, body, response) {}
Previously, the error and payload arguments were ambigous (in the same argument position), causing all sorts of mayhem.
Deprecate the helper modules
Helper methods like getFavorites and updateStatus now include a console warning to use the corresponding get and post method versions.
So .getFavorites(callback) becomes .get('favorites/list').
Why? Because the helper methods do not scale, meaning - as the API changes we will need to update the helper methods accordingly.
Do not worry, the legacy methods are still available. Though it is recommended to use the above suggested syntax as these will soon go the way of the dinosaurs.
npm install twitter
You will need valid Twitter developer credentials in the form of a set of consumer and access tokens/keys. You can get these here. Do not forgot to adjust your permissions - most POST request require write permissions.
var Twitter = require('twitter');
var client = new Twitter({
consumer_key: '',
consumer_secret: '',
access_token_key: '',
access_token_secret: ''
});
Add your credentials accordingly. I would use environment variables to keep your private info safe. So something like:
var client = new Twitter({
consumer_key: process.env.TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY,
consumer_secret: process.env.TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET,
access_token_key: process.env.TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY,
access_token_secret: process.env.TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET,
});
The library comes with two helper methods for get and post requests. To use, you simply need to pass the API path and parameters. Example, lets get a list of favorites:
// @see configuration above for the client variable
client.get('favorites/list', function(error, params, response){
if(error) throw error;
console.log(params); // The favorites.
console.log(response); // Raw response object.
});
How about an example that passes parameters? Let's post a tweet:
// @see configuration above for the client variable
client.post('statuses/update', {status: 'TYBG for twitter'}, function(error, params, response){
if(error) throw error;
console.log(params); // Tweet body.
console.log(response); // Raw response object.
});
Or even streaming? Let's see whose talking about javascript:
// @see configuration above for the client variable
client.stream('statuses/filter', {track: 'javascript'}, function(stream) {
stream.on('data', function(tweet) {
console.log(tweet.text);
});
});