Changes

* https://dev.twitter.com/ is API central. * '''https://dev.twitter.com/docs is the main documentation area''' -- you'll spend a lot of time here =)* other Other useful things linked from [: * https://dev.twitter.com/ devis API central.twitter.com] Amongst other things, it links to: ** [https://dev.twitter.com/status API Status], ** [https://dev.twitter.com/issues API Known Issues], ** API blog & , discussion, etc etc

=== BEFORE creating an app: Bot-specific stuff === If you're going to have a separate twitter account for your bot, the best thing to do is to create that account ''before you create your app''. Then create your new app under ''under the bot's account''. This will simplify doing the OAuth dance below.  === First steps to create an app ===

* sign in with your twitter (bot's) account

* Details tab* Settings tabOAuth metaphor:''valet key'' to your car ** Application type:lets an app act on behalf of a user when dealing with some service*** Read*** Read/Write*** Read/Write/Access DMslets a user give an app specific permissions to interact with a service on their behalf

* receive Roles in OAuth keys :* consumer (client) -- ''your app''* service provider (server) -- ''Twitter''* user (resource owner) -- ''user''

== Bot-OAuth workflow:* user goes to server and says they'd like to authorize application ''X'' to do action ''Y''* server generates access token which represents the combination of the specific stuff ==app & the specific user & the specific level of access the user has granted to that app* user feeds the access token to the app* the app can then present the access token to the server (in combination with its consumer credentials) and be permitted to do whatever's been authorized

The first thing you're going to want to do is go into your app settings and set the correct level of access that your app is going to request from users. This is under the '''Settings''' tab: * Application type:** Read** Read/Write** Read/Write/Access DMs You are probably going to want one of the latter two. Which one depends on whether or not your app is going to work with DMs (direct messages) or not. You can also fill in the rest of the self-explanatory fields in the Details and Settings tabs as you like (organization, etc).  === General Authorize the App on your Bot's Account === While still logged in under the bot's account, navigate to the app's page and generate your access token: Details tab → Your Access Token ''*click*'' Now your bot's twitter account has granted authorization to your app to act on its behalf. You'll that the relevant access token credentials have been created:  * '''<tt>access_token</tt>'''* '''<tt>access_token_secret</tt>'''   == Getting started on the code == Each Twitter API library is going to have its own way to get initialized and set up. Usually it's going to start with creating an object to represent your connection to Twitter and feeding it ALL THE KEYS.   my $twitter = Net::Twitter->new( traits => [qw/API::REST OAuth/], consumer_key => $conf{'consumer_key'}, consumer_secret => $conf{'consumer_secret'}, access_token => $conf{'access_token'}, access_token_secret => $conf{'access_token_secret'}, ); ...and then you'll be able to use the library methods to do the things that you might want to do. == Rules of the Road ==  === General Rules of Conduct and TOS ===

Twitter has a very, very load/performance-centric outlook on the world because of the massive amounts of data and requests they deal with. If you don't play by the rules, twitter has absolutely no hesitation in going [http://i.imgur.com/bf1Xu.jpg NO SOUP FOR YOU]. * REST api is limited to...** 350/reqs per hour ''per signed-in account''** 150/reqs per hour ''per anonymous IP address'' Things that '''do''' count against your limit* pretty much anything that involves hitting the REST API: fetching tweets from your timeline, fetching user profiles, fetching your @-replies, getting a list of followers, whatever. Things that '''do not''' count against your limit (but see below)* publishing status updates (sending tweets)* sending direct messages* following and unfollowing * checking the rate limit by querying <tt>account/rate_limit_status</tt>** it can change, though nowadays it rarely does** note also that you get three headers describing how quickly you're nomming through your ratelimit as part of every REST API reply, eg: *** <tt>X-RateLimit-Limit: 350</tt>*** <tt>X-RateLimit-Remaining: 350</tt>*** <tt>X-RateLimit-Reset: 1277485629</tt>  Other, service-specific limits* 1,000 tweets per day* 250 DMs per day* follow limits: +1,000 per day plus additional monitoring once you hit 2,000 followed users   

* '''Repeated tweets'''** You can't post a tweet that's an exact duplicate of any of your last few tweets. "Whoops! You already tweeted that!"* '''Failed requests'''** Twitter does crap out every now and again due to load or whatever other reason, so you need to watch for failures and catch the resulting exceptions. [500/502/503/504] * [https://dev.twitter.com/docs/error-codes-responses HTTP responses / error codes] ''are'' meaningful and you must honour them in your bot's behaviour. In particular:** '''400''' means you've hit the ratelimit on the REST API** '''420''' means you've hit the ratelimit on the Search or Streaming API ** '''403''' means you've hit update (tweeting) limit.    == General things you may want to do == === Tweet updates from elsewhere ===   twitter = TwitterConnection.new() at (interval) { msg = fetch_external_resource; msg.truncate_to_140_chars; twitter->update(msg) }  === Check for @-messages and reply ===   twitter = TwitterConnection.new() mentions = twitter->mentions( since_id => last_mention ) at (interval) { foreach mention in mentions { mention.parse mention.reply last_mention = mention.id } } sub reply(mention) { msg = fetch_external_resource() msg = '@' + mention.sending_user->screen_name + ' ' + msg msg.truncate_to_140_chars twitter->update(msg, in_reply_to => mention) }    == Example: inetkami ==