Twitter API - get tweets with specific id

Question

I have a list of tweet ids for which I would like to download their text content. Is there any easy solution to do this, preferably through a Python script? I had a look at other libraries like Tweepy and things don't appear to work so simple, and downloading them manually is out of the question since my list is very long.

Answer 1

You can access specific tweets by their id with the statuses/show/:id API route. Most Python Twitter libraries follow the exact same patterns, or offer 'friendly' names for the methods.

For example, Twython offers several show_* methods, including Twython.show_status() that lets you load specific tweets:

CONSUMER_KEY = "<consumer key>"
CONSUMER_SECRET = "<consumer secret>"
OAUTH_TOKEN = "<application key>"
OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET = "<application secret"
twitter = Twython(
    CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET,
    OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET)

tweet = twitter.show_status(id=id_of_tweet)
print(tweet['text'])

and the returned dictionary follows the Tweet object definition given by the API.

The tweepy library uses tweepy.get_status():

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)
auth.set_access_token(OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET)
api = tweepy.API(auth)

tweet = api.get_status(id_of_tweet)
print(tweet.text)

where it returns a slightly richer object, but the attributes on it again reflect the published API.

Answer 2

Sharing my work that was vastly accelerated by the previous answers (thank you). This Python 2.7 script fetches the text for tweet IDs stored in a file. Adjust get_tweet_id() for your input data format; original configured for data at https://github.com/mdredze/twitter_sandy

Update April 2018: responding late to @someone bug report (thank you). This script no longer discards every 100th tweet ID (that was my bug). Please note that if a tweet is unavailable for whatever reason, the bulk fetch silently skips it. The script now warns if the response size is different from the request size.

'''
Gets text content for tweet IDs
'''

# standard
from __future__ import print_function
import getopt
import logging
import os
import sys
# import traceback
# third-party: `pip install tweepy`
import tweepy

# global logger level is configured in main()
Logger = None

# Generate your own at https://apps.twitter.com/app
CONSUMER_KEY = 'Consumer Key (API key)'
CONSUMER_SECRET = 'Consumer Secret (API Secret)'
OAUTH_TOKEN = 'Access Token'
OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET = 'Access Token Secret'

# batch size depends on Twitter limit, 100 at this time
batch_size=100

def get_tweet_id(line):
    '''
    Extracts and returns tweet ID from a line in the input.
    '''
    (tagid,_timestamp,_sandyflag) = line.split('\t')
    (_tag, _search, tweet_id) = tagid.split(':')
    return tweet_id

def get_tweets_single(twapi, idfilepath):
    '''
    Fetches content for tweet IDs in a file one at a time,
    which means a ton of HTTPS requests, so NOT recommended.

    `twapi`: Initialized, authorized API object from Tweepy
    `idfilepath`: Path to file containing IDs
    '''
    # process IDs from the file
    with open(idfilepath, 'rb') as idfile:
        for line in idfile:
            tweet_id = get_tweet_id(line)
            Logger.debug('get_tweets_single: fetching tweet for ID %s', tweet_id)
            try:
                tweet = twapi.get_status(tweet_id)
                print('%s,%s' % (tweet_id, tweet.text.encode('UTF-8')))
            except tweepy.TweepError as te:
                Logger.warn('get_tweets_single: failed to get tweet ID %s: %s', tweet_id, te.message)
                # traceback.print_exc(file=sys.stderr)
        # for
    # with

def get_tweet_list(twapi, idlist):
    '''
    Invokes bulk lookup method.
    Raises an exception if rate limit is exceeded.
    '''
    # fetch as little metadata as possible
    tweets = twapi.statuses_lookup(id_=idlist, include_entities=False, trim_user=True)
    if len(idlist) != len(tweets):
        Logger.warn('get_tweet_list: unexpected response size %d, expected %d', len(tweets), len(idlist))
    for tweet in tweets:
        print('%s,%s' % (tweet.id, tweet.text.encode('UTF-8')))

def get_tweets_bulk(twapi, idfilepath):
    '''
    Fetches content for tweet IDs in a file using bulk request method,
    which vastly reduces number of HTTPS requests compared to above;
    however, it does not warn about IDs that yield no tweet.

    `twapi`: Initialized, authorized API object from Tweepy
    `idfilepath`: Path to file containing IDs
    '''    
    # process IDs from the file
    tweet_ids = list()
    with open(idfilepath, 'rb') as idfile:
        for line in idfile:
            tweet_id = get_tweet_id(line)
            Logger.debug('Enqueing tweet ID %s', tweet_id)
            tweet_ids.append(tweet_id)
            # API limits batch size
            if len(tweet_ids) == batch_size:
                Logger.debug('get_tweets_bulk: fetching batch of size %d', batch_size)
                get_tweet_list(twapi, tweet_ids)
                tweet_ids = list()
    # process remainder
    if len(tweet_ids) > 0:
        Logger.debug('get_tweets_bulk: fetching last batch of size %d', len(tweet_ids))
        get_tweet_list(twapi, tweet_ids)

def usage():
    print('Usage: get_tweets_by_id.py [options] file')
    print('    -s (single) makes one HTTPS request per tweet ID')
    print('    -v (verbose) enables detailed logging')
    sys.exit()

def main(args):
    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.WARN)
    global Logger
    Logger = logging.getLogger('get_tweets_by_id')
    bulk = True
    try:
        opts, args = getopt.getopt(args, 'sv')
    except getopt.GetoptError:
        usage()
    for opt, _optarg in opts:
        if opt in ('-s'):
            bulk = False
        elif opt in ('-v'):
            Logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
            Logger.debug("main: verbose mode on")
        else:
            usage()
    if len(args) != 1:
        usage()
    idfile = args[0]
    if not os.path.isfile(idfile):
        print('Not found or not a file: %s' % idfile, file=sys.stderr)
        usage()

    # connect to twitter
    auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)
    auth.set_access_token(OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET)
    api = tweepy.API(auth)

    # hydrate tweet IDs
    if bulk:
        get_tweets_bulk(api, idfile)
    else:
        get_tweets_single(api, idfile)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main(sys.argv[1:])

Answer 3

You can access tweets in bulk (up to 100 at a time) with the status/lookup endpoint: https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/get/statuses/lookup

Answer 4

I don't have enough reputation to add an actual comment so sadly this is the way to go:

I found a bug and a strange thing in chrisinmtown answer:

Every 100th tweet will be skipped due to the bug. Here is a simple solution:

        if len(tweet_ids) < 100:
            tweet_ids.append(tweet_id)
        else:
            tweet_ids.append(tweet_id)
            get_tweet_list(twapi, tweet_ids)
            tweet_ids = list()

Using is better since it works even past the rate limit.

api = tweepy.API(auth_handler=auth, wait_on_rate_limit=True, wait_on_rate_limit_notify=True)