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 7:12am local time:

	djqko: RT @shnskm: マツコ・デラックスが『Twitter』を始めるもフォローは27人！http://getnews.jp/archives/51037 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	gresco: Are you seeing Twitter's new hovercards on your browser. I'm not. This is from a friend. http://twitpic.com/17u20i 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	amandacmm: Sign up free and Expand your Twitter followers using http://FollowersTrain.com 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	triplep220: @MotorBug Woah, @workerofwood... Haven't seen that name on twitter for a long time... 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	myfloridamarket: Google Finally Gets Real Time: Want to find out what people are saying right now at a conference? Twitter search.... http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Column/After-Thought/Google-Finally-Gets-Real-Time-61566.htm?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	BeautflBlss421: Tutu always be on some other shit when she be on twitter lmfaoooo 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	t_rave: Super Secret Link was just sent out. If you didn't get it, come find me on twitter or wait till the vlog goes live. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=361053529167&id=7752477274 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	BaadHealthfreak: Look at this awesome twitter marketing video series. I watched the video and now I'm making money with my Twitter Acct! http://02705cu9dzw5xwhpza7lue47zx.hop.clickbank.net/ 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	grinding4ddub: hey everyone..... babyboy @jbr1985 is in twitter jail ...AGAIN..... but you can DM him 11 March 2010, 7:11am
	karianned: @SaraNDesign Hi Sara, you are one of my newest followers! Love meeting new folks even if its on Twitter. 11 March 2010, 7:11am

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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