There's life in the old shell yet. Now you can use bash and your favorite text editor to let everyone know what you had for breakfast this morning... Put it on cron and ... um, well I dunno, use it kind of like a deadman's tweet if something goes wrong?
Just edit the variables at the top of the file to taste, make sure MY_HOME and ARCHIVE exist, save and then source it into your current shell % . twitter.sh % h # For help Try % post to test it. % edit # To edit a message % send # To send edited message 'send' is a bit more clever, launches your editor and breaks up long posts into the 140 char limit (uses gnu's 'fold' utility for the black magic bit). 'send.reverse' reverses the lines which has the effect of making long broken-up posts read top to bottom on the twitter website but probably breaks some basic idea about how you're supposed to use it or something... Here's the file (half of which is the help message): -- # Requirements: curl, less, fold (gnu coreutils) # Variables here: MY_HOME=/home/danb/twitter TMP_FILE=$MY_HOME/tmp_file.txt # File you use to write your tweets. TEST_FILE=$MY_HOME/lorem.para1 # For testing 'send'. See test.* functions. USERNAME=twitter_username PASSWORD=twitter_password COOKIEJAR=$MY_HOME/cookie.txt ARCHIVE=$MY_HOME/archive/previous # File to dump previous tweets. EDITOR=vim # Editor shouldn't detach from the shell. POST_URL=https://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml # The url you post your updates to. # I use https, probably should be http. STATUS_URL=http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline # Used to fetch your tweets or someone else # STATUS_URL.format # you # STATUS_URL/username.format # someone else FOLLOWING=$MY_HOME/following.db # Text file listing people you follow. # See h() below. DEFAULT_FORMAT=xml # Default format of output from twitter REST api. # Options are: xml|json|rss|atom delete_blank_lines='sed -e /^$/d' # Deletes blank lines which are of no use to us. html_entities='sed -e s/</\</g;s/>/\>/g' # Twitter api will convert '>','<' to html entities which # count towards 140 char limit. We do it instead. xml_filter='egrep <text>|<created_at>' h() { less <<-EOF Twitter via the REST API See: http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Things-Every-Developer-Should-Know See point 8. http://www.sakana.fr/blog/2007/03/18/scripting-twitter-with-curl/ See "status update" for normal twitter posting. Functions: go last - edit your tmp_file without sending anything browser - open twitter in firefox recent - view recent tweets in ARCHIVE format [format] Display current output format that will be requested from twitter. Options: xml|json|atom|rss If [format] given, set format to this. Use with 'status' or 'checkon' to get your twitter posts in various formats. You could pipe json into javascript, ruby, python etc... Current output format from twitter is: $DEFAULT_FORMAT status Get your twitter posts in xml checkon nickname Get status on someone else. You first need to add someone to the FOLLOWING file. See 'following' herein. following Edits FOLLOWING; a text file listing people you follow. Format: nickname:username nickname must be unique; is your shorthand for username which is the name used by twitter. edit edit message Also use: 'go last' send Send a message. Long messages will be broken up to meet the 140 char limit. Currently <,> will be converted to html entities. Uses 'post'. send.reverse Reverses the lines you are sending which has the effect of making long broken-up posts read from top to bottom on the twitter website. Uses 'tac' instead of cat which will reverse lines. post "your message" If no message given, post will post a test message to twitter for you to check. NOTE: 'post' doesn't check the 140 character limit, or html entities etc. In general, use 'send' to post your stuff. test.send test.send.dry Send TEST_FILE to twitter. 'dry' doesn't send to twitter; just prints output test.send.reverse test.send.reverse.dry Test send.reverse. test.entities Test html entities. EOF } go() { case "$1" in last) $EDITOR $TMP_FILE;; browser) firefox http://twitter.com;; recent) less $ARCHIVE;; *) cd $MY_HOME ;; esac } edit() { go last } format() { case "$1" in atom) DEFAULT_FORMAT=atom;; rss) DEFAULT_FORMAT=rss;; xml) DEFAULT_FORMAT=xml;; json) DEFAULT_FORMAT=json;; "") echo "Current format is: $DEFAULT_FORMAT";; *) echo "Don't know this format." ;; esac } status() { test -n "$1" && format="$1" || format=$DEFAULT_FORMAT curl --basic --user $USERNAME:$PASSWORD \ $STATUS_URL.$format | less } following() { $EDITOR $FOLLOWING } checkon() { test ! -f $FOLLOWING && echo "Need to setup $FOLLOWING." \ && return 1 format=$DEFAULT_FORMAT nickname=$1 test -z "$nickname" && echo "Need a nickname." && return 1 line=$(grep '\<'$nickname'\>' $FOLLOWING) test -z "$line" && echo "Don't know '$nickname'." && return 1 username=${line/#*:/} curl $STATUS_URL/$username.$format | less } post() { test -z "$1" && status="cURL test!" || status="$1" curl --basic --user $USERNAME:$PASSWORD \ --data status="$status" \ $POST_URL return $? # If http error, curl returns >0 } send() { testing=no order=cat file=$TMP_FILE while true; do test -z "$1" && break case "$1" in # Don't send to twitter. dry) file=$TEST_FILE; testing=dry ;; # Send to twitter. test) file=$TEST_FILE; testing=yes ;; reverse) order="tac";; esac shift done if ask $file; then echo "POSTing...." cat $file | $html_entities | fold -s -b -w 140 $file | \ $delete_blank_lines | $order | \ while read line; do case "$testing" in dry) echo $line; continue ;; *) if post "$line"; then echo "(posted a line!)" else echo "(might have been an error posting this line: $line)" fi ;; esac done; test "$testing" = "no" && (echo '-'; date; cat $file) >>$ARCHIVE else echo "NOT posting!" fi } send.reverse() { send reverse } ask() { echo '--------------' cat $1 echo '--------------' echo -n "Post to twitter? [y] " read r case "$r" in n*|N*) return 1;; *) return 0;; esac } test.send() { send test } test.send.dry() { send dry } test.send.reverse() { send test reverse } test.send.reverse.dry() { send dry reverse } test.entities() { echo "><" | $html_entities echo 'should be: ><' } -- end of file -- Daniel Bush -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
