PHP: Displaying Twitter Search Results in HTML

Here's a new use for our RSS Feed Reader - displaying content returned by the Twitter API. In this article we are simply fetching and presenting the most recent 'tweets' containing a particular string, but there's no reason why the same code can't be used for other RSS content returned by Twitter.

Fetching the feed contents from Twitter

The first step is to define our parameters:

You can see from the first line that this script accepts a single $_GET parameter $q defining the search string. If this variable is not set then the default search is for 'twitter'. The other parameters should be self-explanatory.

To do a search on Twitter we just send an HTTP request to their search script including the format (in this case 'rss') and the query string. Other more advanced options (see References below) are also available. For our purposes just the rpp (number of tweets to return per page) parameter is enough. No authentication is necessary as we're only reading public content, but it is rate limited.

For security it's a good idea to expand any 'shortened' urls in the results. That way people know what they're clicking on. We do this using curl and a crafty regular expression that detects most known url-shortening services:

We could also just try to expand every URL detected, but then you're making a lot of unnecessary HEAD requests for those links that pass through Twitter unshortened.

Important: Using the PHP Curl library is also possible and might be necessary if you're using Windows. The script presented above requires command-line curl access and the awk function. You can find a script that uses PHP Curl under References below.

Now we need a way to download and store (cache) the feed contents. We do this using a simple function:

The updateFeed function when called simply downloads and stores the raw RSS file contents. Note that before making the API request to Twitter we are setting the user agent. You don't have to set a user agent, but if you don't your requests can be rate-limited.

Displaying the search results in HTML format

In the next section we display a short paragraph introducing the search results. Both the search string and the last modified date of the cached file are displayed:

If no cached file exists for this query the updateFeed function is called to fetch it for the first time.

Finally we're ready to display the search results on the page. This section is almost identical to that introduced in previous articles, the only difference being that it's been customised specifically for Twitter content:

The output, as you can probably work out, will be a two-column HTML table displaying the users twitter icon, the update text and timestamp. We've also included some links where appropriate.

As a final step the following code should be placed right at the end of the page after all the HTML has been displayed:

The function of this code and the reason for placing it at the end of the page has been described in a previous article.

Sample output of Twitter search results

Here you can see the output of this script more or less exactly as presented. All we've done is added some smilies:

Read the latest tweets mentioning twitter as of 12:45am local time:

	AlineTD2: *Mee maatandu para axaar um planuu de fundo proo meu kiriido: #TWITTER :D 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	pixelmetrie: Nette Studienidee: Wie wirkt sich #twitter auf die #Feed-Nutzung aus? Bei mir ein TOTALER Wechsel zum zwitschern! Wie siehts bei euch aus? 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	LeeCaraher: RT @BrendaClayson: U choose who U associate with & spend time with (in life & on twitter). Don't like what you see? Do something about it.:) 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	SwaggCertified: RT @TheProTips: If your Twitter profile is private and you send an @ reply to someone, they won't see it unless they're following you. 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	herewegomaureen: RT @Mileycyruschile: RT: Si amas Twitter. 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	mizztay15: Jus made dis twitter idk fah wat?mi sista wanted me 2!lol!but wats gud Twitter!lol! 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	gaoh_bot: ru_go (「・ω・)「がおーhttp://twitter.com/ru_go/status/10625576548 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	ImAfterdotcom: On Twitter: BradBurton: RT @realgoodwriting: @bradburton OMG, I was 19 - she's 66 though http://businessnetworking.ws/2010/03/bradburton-rt-realgoodwriting-bradburton-omg-i-was-19-shes-66-though/ 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	sabebcom: Frédéric Lefebvre caricaturé sur Twitterhttp://www.sabeb.com/a-la-une-2010/frederic-lefebvre-caricature-sur-twitter-53359.html 18 March 2010, 12:45am
	sheeduhh: RT @WhoIsPolo: I"m sick of twitter... Dis shit lame... -- #hereUgo , you better keep ya ass logged in ! 18 March 2010, 12:45am

This script is experimental so you use it at your own risk. Please send questions and comments via the Feedback link below.

Contents of the Twitter search RSS Feed

Here you can see exactly what kind of data we're receiving back from Twitter in RSS format:

expand code box

Related Articles

• PHP: RSS and Atom Feed Reader
• PHP: RSS Feed Reader: Source Code
• PHP: RSS Feed Reader Code Example
• PHP: Atom Feed Reader: Source Code
• PHP: YouTube API Feed Reader: Source Code
• PHP: Displaying and updating RSS Content using Ajax
• PHP: Displaying Twitter Search Results in HTML

References

• Twitter Search API Method: search
• expanding short url to original url using PHP and CURL

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