Thanks to @gotwalt for spotting the missing commas.
Fixed JSON sample ...
[
{
"coordinates": null,
"truncated": false,
"created_at": "Thu Oct 14 22:20:15 +0000 2010",
"favorited": false,
"entities": {
"urls": [
],
"hashtags": [
],
"user_mentions": [
{
"name": "Matt Harris",
"id": 777925,
"id_str": "777925",
"indices": [
0,
14
],
"screen_name": "themattharris"
}
]
},
"text": "@themattharris hey how are things?",
"annotations": null,
"contributors": [
{
"id": 819797,
"id_str": "819797",
"screen_name": "episod"
}
],
"id": 12738165059,
"id_str": "12738165059",
"retweet_count": 0,
"geo": null,
"retweeted": false,
"in_reply_to_user_id": 777925,
"in_reply_to_user_id_str": "777925",
"in_reply_to_screen_name": "themattharris",
"user": {
"id": 6253282,
"id_str": "6253282"
},
"source": "web",
"place": null,
"in_reply_to_status_id": 12738040524,
"in_reply_to_status_id_str": "12738040524"
}
]
Best,
@themattharris
On Oct 18, 5:19 pm, Matt Harris <thematthar...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Last week you may remember Twitter planned to enable the new Status ID
> generator - 'Snowflake' but didn't. The purpose of this email is to explain
> the reason why this didn't happen, what we are doing about it, and what the
> new release plan is.
>
> So what is Snowflake?
> ------------------------------
> Snowflake is a service we will be using to generate unique Tweet IDs. These
> Tweet IDs are unique 64bit unsigned integers, which, instead of being
> sequential like the current IDs, are based on time. The full ID is composed
> of a timestamp, a worker number, and a sequence number.
>
> The problem
> -----------------
> Before launch it came to our attention that some programming languages such
> as Javascript cannot support numbers with >53bits. This can be easily
> examined by running a command similar to: (90071992547409921).toString() in
> your browsers console or by running the following JSON snippet through your
> JSON parser.
>
> {"id": 10765432100123456789, "id_str": "10765432100123456789"}
>
> In affected JSON parsers the ID will not be converted successfully and will
> lose accuracy. In some parsers there may even be an exception.
>
> The solution
> ----------------
> To allow javascript and JSON parsers to read the IDs we need to include a
> string version of any ID when responding in the JSON format. What this means
> is Status, User, Direct Message and Saved Search IDs in the Twitter API will
> now be returned as an integer and a string in JSON responses. This will
> apply to the main Twitter API, the Streaming API and the Search API.
>
> For example, a status object will now contain an id and an id_str. The
> following JSON representation of a status object shows the two versions of
> the ID fields for each data point.
>
> [
> {
> "coordinates": null,
> "truncated": false,
> "created_at": "Thu Oct 14 22:20:15 +0000 2010",
> "favorited": false,
> "entities": {
> "urls": [
> ],
> "hashtags": [
> ],
> "user_mentions": [
> {
> "name": "Matt Harris",
> "id": 777925,
> "id_str": "777925",
> "indices": [
> 0,
> 14
> ],
> "screen_name": "themattharris"
> }
> ]
> },
> "text": "@themattharris hey how are things?",
> "annotations": null,
> "contributors": [
> {
> "id": 819797,
> "id_str": "819797",
> "screen_name": "episod"
> }
> ],
> "id": 12738165059,
> "id_str": "12738165059",
> "retweet_count": 0,
> "geo": null,
> "retweeted": false,
> "in_reply_to_user_id": 777925,
> "in_reply_to_user_id_str": "777925",
> "in_reply_to_screen_name": "themattharris",
> "user": {
> "id": 6253282
> "id_str": "6253282"
> },
> "source": "web",
> "place": null,
> "in_reply_to_status_id": 12738040524
> "in_reply_to_status_id_str": "12738040524"
> }
> ]
>
> What should you do - RIGHT NOW
> ----------------------------------------------
> The first thing you should do is attempt to decode the JSON snippet above
> using your production code parser. Observe the output to confirm the ID has
> not lost accuracy.
>
> What you do next depends on what happens:
>
> * If your code converts the ID successfully without losing accuracy you are
> OK but should consider converting to the _str versions of IDs as soon as
> possible.
> * If your code has lost accuracy, convert your code to using the _str
> version immediately. If you do not do this your code will be unable to
> interact with the Twitter API reliably.
> * In some language parsers, the JSON may throw an exception when reading the
> ID value. If this happens in your parser you will need to ‘pre-parse’ the
> data, removing or replacing ID parameters with their _str versions.
>
> Summary
> -------------
> 1) If you develop in Javascript, know that you will have to update your code
> to read the string version instead of the integer version.
>
> 2) If you use a JSON decoder, validate that the example JSON, above, decodes
> without throwing exceptions. If exceptions are thrown, you will need to
> pre-parse the data. Please let us know the name, version, and language of
> the parser which throws the exception so we can investigate.
>
> Timeline
> -----------
> by 22nd October 2010 (Friday): String versions of ID numbers will start
> appearing in the API responses
> 4th November 2010 (Thursday) : Snowflake will be turned on but at ~41bit
> length
> 26th November 2010 (Friday) : Status IDs will break 53bits in length and
> cease being usable as Integers in Javascript based languages
>
> We understand this isn’t as seamless a transition as we had planned and
> appreciate for some of you this change requires an update to your code.
> We’ve tried to give as much time as possible for you to make the migration
> and update your code to use the new string representations.
>
> Our own products and tools are affected by the change and we will be making
> available any pre-parsing snippets we have created to ensure code continues
> to work with the new IDs.
>
> Thanks for your support and understanding.
>
> ---
> @themattharris
> Developer Advocate, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/themattharris
--
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