Twitter for Node.js

node-twitter aims to provide a complete, asynchronous client library for the Twitter API, including the REST, search and streaming endpoints. It a fork of @jdub's twitter-node which was inspired by, and used some code from, @technoweenie's twitter-node.

1.x

This library pre-1.x is comprised of patterns and a API that has been mostly un-changed since is its inception. The 1.x branch is an effort to:

• Introduce a more standard callback pattern https://github.com/desmondmorris/node-twitter/issues/23
• Support for all 1.1 and future endpoints.
• Add test coverage (Planned)
• Add better examples and documentation (Planned)

Migrating to 1.x

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.

Installation

npm install twitter

Configuration

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 you 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,
    });

Usage

The library comes with two helper methods for get and post requests. To use, you simple 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 of that passes parameters? Lets post a tweet something:

// @see configuration above for the client variable

client.post('statuses/updates', {status: 'TYBG for twitter'},  function(error, params, response){

  if(error) throw error;

  console.log(params);  // Tweet body.

  console.log(response);  // Raw response object.

});