tweepy Documentation

Release 3.6.0

Joshua Roesslein

Nov 20, 2017

 Contents

1 Getting started 3
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Hello Tweepy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Authentication Tutorial 5
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 OAuth Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Code Snippets 9
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2 OAuth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Pagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4 FollowAll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.5 Handling the rate limit using cursors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

4 Cursor Tutorial 11
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

5 Streaming With Tweepy 13

5.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.2 Step 1: Creating a StreamListener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3 Step 2: Creating a Stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4 Step 3: Starting a Stream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.5 A Few More Pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

6 API Reference 17

7 tweepy.api — Twitter API wrapper 19

7.1 Timeline methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.2 Status methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.3 User methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.4 Direct Message Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.5 Friendship Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7.6 Account Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.7 Favorite Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

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 7.8 Block Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.9 Spam Reporting Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.10 Saved Searches Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7.11 Help Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
7.12 List Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
7.13 Trends Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7.14 Geo Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

8 tweepy.error — Exceptions 35

9 Indices and tables 37

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Contents:

Contents 1
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2 Contents
 CHAPTER 1

Getting started

1.1 Introduction

If you are new to Tweepy, this is the place to begin. The goal of this tutorial is to get you set-up and rolling with
Tweepy. We won’t go into too much detail here, just some important basics.

1.2 Hello Tweepy

import tweepy

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)

auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)

api = tweepy.API(auth)

public_tweets = api.home_timeline()
for tweet in public_tweets:
print(tweet.text)

This example will download your home timeline tweets and print each one of their texts to the console. Twitter requires
all requests to use OAuth for authentication. The Authentication Tutorial goes into more details about authentication.

1.3 API

The API class provides access to the entire twitter RESTful API methods. Each method can accept various parameters
and return responses. For more information about these methods please refer to API Reference.

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1.4 Models

When we invoke an API method most of the time returned back to us will be a Tweepy model class instance. This will
contain the data returned from Twitter which we can then use inside our application. For example the following code
returns to us an User model:

# Get the User object for twitter...

user = api.get_user('twitter')

Models contain the data and some helper methods which we can then use:

print(user.screen_name)
print(user.followers_count)
for friend in user.friends():
print(friend.screen_name)

For more information about models please see ModelsReference.

4 Chapter 1. Getting started

 CHAPTER 2

Authentication Tutorial

2.1 Introduction

Tweepy supports oauth authentication. Authentication is handled by the tweepy.AuthHandler class.

2.2 OAuth Authentication

Tweepy tries to make OAuth as painless as possible for you. To begin the process we need to register our client
application with Twitter. Create a new application and once you are done you should have your consumer token and
secret. Keep these two handy, you’ll need them.
The next step is creating an OAuthHandler instance. Into this we pass our consumer token and secret which was given
to us in the previous paragraph:

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_token, consumer_secret)

If you have a web application and are using a callback URL that needs to be supplied dynamically you would pass it
in like so:

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_token, consumer_secret,

callback_url)

If the callback URL will not be changing, it is best to just configure it statically on twitter.com when setting up your
application’s profile.
Unlike basic auth, we must do the OAuth “dance” before we can start using the API. We must complete the following
steps:
1. Get a request token from twitter
2. Redirect user to twitter.com to authorize our application
3. If using a callback, twitter will redirect the user to us. Otherwise the user must manually supply us with the
verifier code.

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4. Exchange the authorized request token for an access token.

So let’s fetch our request token to begin the dance:

try:
redirect_url = auth.get_authorization_url()
except tweepy.TweepError:
print 'Error! Failed to get request token.'

This call requests the token from twitter and returns to us the authorization URL where the user must be redirect to
authorize us. Now if this is a desktop application we can just hang onto our OAuthHandler instance until the user
returns back. In a web application we will be using a callback request. So we must store the request token in the
session since we will need it inside the callback URL request. Here is a pseudo example of storing the request token
in a session:

session.set('request_token', auth.request_token)

So now we can redirect the user to the URL returned to us earlier from the get_authorization_url() method.
If this is a desktop application (or any application not using callbacks) we must query the user for the “verifier code”
that twitter will supply them after they authorize us. Inside a web application this verifier value will be supplied in the
callback request from twitter as a GET query parameter in the URL.

# Example using callback (web app)

verifier = request.GET.get('oauth_verifier')

# Example w/o callback (desktop)

verifier = raw_input('Verifier:')

The final step is exchanging the request token for an access token. The access token is the “key” for opening the
Twitter API treasure box. To fetch this token we do the following:

# Let's say this is a web app, so we need to re-build the auth handler
# first...
auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
token = session.get('request_token')
session.delete('request_token')
auth.request_token = { 'oauth_token' : token,
'oauth_token_secret' : verifier }

try:
auth.get_access_token(verifier)
except tweepy.TweepError:
print 'Error! Failed to get access token.'

It is a good idea to save the access token for later use. You do not need to re-fetch it each time. Twitter currently does
not expire the tokens, so the only time it would ever go invalid is if the user revokes our application access. To store
the access token depends on your application. Basically you need to store 2 string values: key and secret:

auth.access_token
auth.access_token_secret

You can throw these into a database, file, or where ever you store your data. To re-build an OAuthHandler from this
stored access token you would do this:

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)

auth.set_access_token(key, secret)

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So now that we have our OAuthHandler equipped with an access token, we are ready for business:

api = tweepy.API(auth)
api.update_status('tweepy + oauth!')

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8 Chapter 2. Authentication Tutorial

 CHAPTER 3

Code Snippets

3.1 Introduction

Here are some code snippets to help you out with using Tweepy. Feel free to contribute your own snippets or improve
the ones here!

3.2 OAuth

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler("consumer_key", "consumer_secret")

# Redirect user to Twitter to authorize

redirect_user(auth.get_authorization_url())

# Get access token

auth.get_access_token("verifier_value")

# Construct the API instance

api = tweepy.API(auth)

3.3 Pagination

# Iterate through all of the authenticated user's friends

for friend in tweepy.Cursor(api.friends).items():
# Process the friend here
process_friend(friend)

# Iterate through the first 200 statuses in the friends timeline

for status in tweepy.Cursor(api.friends_timeline).items(200):

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# Process the status here

process_status(status)

3.4 FollowAll

This snippet will follow every follower of the authenticated user.

for follower in tweepy.Cursor(api.followers).items():

follower.follow()

3.5 Handling the rate limit using cursors

Since cursors raise RateLimitErrors in their next() method, handling them can be done by wrapping the cursor
in an iterator.
Running this snippet will print all users you follow that themselves follow less than 300 people total - to exclude
obvious spambots, for example - and will wait for 15 minutes each time it hits the rate limit.

# In this example, the handler is time.sleep(15 * 60),

# but you can of course handle it in any way you want.

def limit_handled(cursor):
while True:
try:
yield cursor.next()
except tweepy.RateLimitError:
time.sleep(15 * 60)

for follower in limit_handled(tweepy.Cursor(api.followers).items()):

if follower.friends_count < 300:
print follower.screen_name

10 Chapter 3. Code Snippets

 CHAPTER 4

Cursor Tutorial

This tutorial describes details on pagination with Cursor objects.

4.1 Introduction

We use pagination a lot in Twitter API development. Iterating through timelines, user lists, direct messages, etc. In
order to perform pagination we must supply a page/cursor parameter with each of our requests. The problem here is
this requires a lot of boiler plate code just to manage the pagination loop. To help make pagination easier and require
less code Tweepy has the Cursor object.

4.1.1 Old way vs Cursor way

First let’s demonstrate iterating the statues in the authenticated user’s timeline. Here is how we would do it the “old
way” before Cursor object was introduced:

page = 1
while True:
statuses = api.user_timeline(page=page)
if statuses:
for status in statuses:
# process status here
process_status(status)
else:
# All done
break
page += 1 # next page

As you can see we must manage the “page” parameter manually in our pagination loop. Now here is the version of
the code using Cursor object:

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for status in tweepy.Cursor(api.user_timeline).items():

# process status here
process_status(status)

Now that looks much better! Cursor handles all the pagination work for us behind the scene so our code can now focus
entirely on processing the results.

4.1.2 Passing parameters into the API method

What if you need to pass in parameters to the API method?

api.user_timeline(id="twitter")

Since we pass Cursor the callable, we can not pass the parameters directly into the method. Instead we pass the
parameters into the Cursor constructor method:

tweepy.Cursor(api.user_timeline, id="twitter")

Now Cursor will pass the parameter into the method for us when ever it makes a request.

4.1.3 Items or Pages

So far we have just demonstrated pagination iterating per an item. What if instead you want to process per a page of
results? You would use the pages() method:

for page in tweepy.Cursor(api.user_timeline).pages():

# page is a list of statuses
process_page(page)

4.1.4 Limits

What if you only want n items or pages returned? You pass into the items() or pages() methods the limit you want to
impose.

# Only iterate through the first 200 statuses

for status in tweepy.Cursor(api.user_timeline).items(200):
process_status(status)

# Only iterate through the first 3 pages

for page in tweepy.Cursor(api.user_timeline).pages(3):
process_page(page)

12 Chapter 4. Cursor Tutorial

 CHAPTER 5

Streaming With Tweepy

Tweepy makes it easier to use the twitter streaming api by handling authentication, connection, creating and destroying
the session, reading incoming messages, and partially routing messages.
This page aims to help you get started using Twitter streams with Tweepy by offering a first walk through. Some
features of Tweepy streaming are not covered here. See streaming.py in the Tweepy source code.
API authorization is required to access Twitter streams. Follow the Authentication Tutorial if you need help with
authentication.

5.1 Summary

The Twitter streaming API is used to download twitter messages in real time. It is useful for obtaining a high volume
of tweets, or for creating a live feed using a site stream or user stream. See the Twitter Streaming API Documentation.
The streaming api is quite different from the REST api because the REST api is used to pull data from twitter but the
streaming api pushes messages to a persistent session. This allows the streaming api to download more data in real
time than could be done using the REST API.
In Tweepy, an instance of tweepy.Stream establishes a streaming session and routes messages to StreamListener
instance. The on_data method of a stream listener receives all messages and calls functions according to the message
type. The default StreamListener can classify most common twitter messages and routes them to appropriately named
methods, but these methods are only stubs.
Therefore using the streaming api has three steps.
1. Create a class inheriting from StreamListener
2. Using that class create a Stream object
3. Connect to the Twitter API using the Stream.

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5.2 Step 1: Creating a StreamListener

This simple stream listener prints status text. The on_data method of Tweepy’s StreamListener conveniently passes
data from statuses to the on_status method. Create class MyStreamListener inheriting from StreamListener and
overriding on_status.:

import tweepy
#override tweepy.StreamListener to add logic to on_status
class MyStreamListener(tweepy.StreamListener):

def on_status(self, status):

print(status.text)

5.3 Step 2: Creating a Stream

We need an api to stream. See Authentication Tutorial to learn how to get an api object. Once we have an api and a
status listener we can create our stream object.:

myStreamListener = MyStreamListener()
myStream = tweepy.Stream(auth = api.auth, listener=myStreamListener)

5.4 Step 3: Starting a Stream

A number of twitter streams are available through Tweepy. Most cases will use filter, the user_stream, or the sitestream.
For more information on the capabilities and limitations of the different streams see Twitter Streaming API Documen-
tation.
In this example we will use filter to stream all tweets containing the word python. The track parameter is an array of
search terms to stream.

myStream.filter(track=['python'])

This example shows how to use filter to stream tweets by a specific user. The follow parameter is an array of IDs.

myStream.filter(follow=["2211149702"])

An easy way to find a single ID is to use one of the many conversion websites: search for ‘what is my twitter ID’.

5.5 A Few More Pointers

5.5.1 Async Streaming

Streams do not terminate unless the connection is closed, blocking the thread. Tweepy offers a convenient async
parameter on filter so the stream will run on a new thread. For example

myStream.filter(track=['python'], async=True)

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5.5.2 Handling Errors

When using Twitter’s streaming API one must be careful of the dangers of rate limiting. If clients exceed a limited
number of attempts to connect to the streaming API in a window of time, they will receive error 420. The amount of
time a client has to wait after receiving error 420 will increase exponentially each time they make a failed attempt.
Tweepy’s Stream Listener passes error codes to an on_error stub. The default implementation returns False for
all codes, but we can override it to allow Tweepy to reconnect for some or all codes, using the backoff strategies
recommended in the Twitter Streaming API Connecting Documentation.

class MyStreamListener(tweepy.StreamListener):

def on_error(self, status_code):

if status_code == 420:
#returning False in on_error disconnects the stream
return False

# returning non-False reconnects the stream, with backoff.

For more information on error codes from the Twitter API see Twitter Response Codes Documentation.

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16 Chapter 5. Streaming With Tweepy

 CHAPTER 6

API Reference

This page contains some basic documentation for the Tweepy module.

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18 Chapter 6. API Reference

 CHAPTER 7

tweepy.api — Twitter API wrapper

class API([auth_handler=None ][, host=’api.twitter.com’ ][, search_host=’search.twitter.com’ ][,

cache=None ][, api_root=’/1’ ][, search_root=’‘ ][, retry_count=0 ][, retry_delay=0
][, retry_errors=None ][, timeout=60 ][, parser=ModelParser ][, compression=False ][,
wait_on_rate_limit=False ][, wait_on_rate_limit_notify=False ][, proxy=None ])
This class provides a wrapper for the API as provided by Twitter. The functions provided in this class are listed
below.
Parameters
• auth_handler – authentication handler to be used
• host – general API host
• search_host – search API host
• cache – cache backend to use
• api_root – general API path root
• search_root – search API path root
• retry_count – default number of retries to attempt when error occurs
• retry_delay – number of seconds to wait between retries
• retry_errors – which HTTP status codes to retry
• timeout – The maximum amount of time to wait for a response from Twitter
• parser – The object to use for parsing the response from Twitter
• compression – Whether or not to use GZIP compression for requests
• wait_on_rate_limit – Whether or not to automatically wait for rate limits to replenish
• wait_on_rate_limit_notify – Whether or not to print a notification when Tweepy
is waiting for rate limits to replenish
• proxy – The full url to an HTTPS proxy to use for connecting to Twitter.

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7.1 Timeline methods

API.home_timeline([since_id ][, max_id ][, count ][, page ])

Returns the 20 most recent statuses, including retweets, posted by the authenticating user and that user’s friends.
This is the equivalent of /timeline/home on the Web.
Parameters
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of Status objects
API.statuses_lookup(id_[, include_entities ][, trim_user ][, map_ ])
Returns full Tweet objects for up to 100 tweets per request, specified by the id parameter.
Parameters
• id – A list of Tweet IDs to lookup, up to 100
• include_entities – A boolean indicating whether or not to include [entities](https:
//dev.twitter.com/docs/entities) in the returned tweets. Defaults to False.
• trim_user – A boolean indicating if user IDs should be provided, instead of full user
information. Defaults to False.
• map – A boolean indicating whether or not to include tweets that cannot be shown, but with
a value of None. Defaults to False.
Return type list of Status objects
API.user_timeline([id/user_id/screen_name ][, since_id ][, max_id ][, count ][, page ])
Returns the 20 most recent statuses posted from the authenticating user or the user specified. It’s also possible
to request another user’s timeline via the id parameter.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of Status objects

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API.retweets_of_me([since_id ][, max_id ][, count ][, page ])

Returns the 20 most recent tweets of the authenticated user that have been retweeted by others.
Parameters
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of Status objects
API.mentions_timeline([since_id ][, max_id ][, count ])
Returns the 20 most recent mentions, including retweets.
Parameters
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
Return type list of Status objects

7.2 Status methods

API.get_status(id)
Returns a single status specified by the ID parameter.
Parameters id – The numerical ID of the status.
Return type Status object
API.update_status(status[, in_reply_to_status_id ][, auto_populate_reply_metadata ][, lat ][, long ][,
source ][, place_id ])
Update the authenticated user’s status. Statuses that are duplicates or too long will be silently ignored.
Parameters
• status – The text of your status update.
• in_reply_to_status_id – The ID of an existing status that the update is in reply to.
• auto_populate_reply_metadata – Whether to automatically include the @men-
tions in the status metadata.
• lat – The location’s latitude that this tweet refers to.
• long – The location’s longitude that this tweet refers to.
• source – Source of the update. Only supported by Identi.ca. Twitter ignores this parame-
ter.
• place_id – Twitter ID of location which is listed in the Tweet if geolocation is enabled
for the user.

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Return type Status object

API.update_with_media(filename[, status ][, in_reply_to_status_id ][, auto_populate_reply_metadata
][, lat ][, long ][, source ][, place_id ][, file ])
Update the authenticated user’s status. Statuses that are duplicates or too long will be silently ignored.
Parameters
• filename – The filename of the image to upload. This will automatically be opened unless
file is specified
• status – The text of your status update.
• in_reply_to_status_id – The ID of an existing status that the update is in reply to.
• auto_populate_reply_metadata – Whether to automatically include the @men-
tions in the status metadata.
• lat – The location’s latitude that this tweet refers to.
• long – The location’s longitude that this tweet refers to.
• source – Source of the update. Only supported by Identi.ca. Twitter ignores this parame-
ter.
• place_id – Twitter ID of location which is listed in the Tweet if geolocation is enabled
for the user.
• file – A file object, which will be used instead of opening filename. filename is still
required, for MIME type detection and to use as a form field in the POST data
Return type Status object
API.destroy_status(id)
Destroy the status specified by the id parameter. The authenticated user must be the author of the status to
destroy.
Parameters id – The numerical ID of the status.
Return type Status object
API.retweet(id)
Retweets a tweet. Requires the id of the tweet you are retweeting.
Parameters id – The numerical ID of the status.
Return type Status object
API.retweets(id[, count ])
Returns up to 100 of the first retweets of the given tweet.
Parameters
• id – The numerical ID of the status.
• count – Specifies the number of retweets to retrieve.
Return type list of Status objects

7.3 User methods

API.get_user(id/user_id/screen_name)
Returns information about the specified user.

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Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
Return type User object
API.me()
Returns the authenticated user’s information.
Return type User object
API.followers([id/screen_name/user_id ][, cursor ])
Returns an user’s followers ordered in which they were added 100 at a time. If no user is specified by id/screen
name, it defaults to the authenticated user.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to
page back and forth in the list.
Return type list of User objects
API.search_users(q[, per_page ][, page ])
Run a search for users similar to Find People button on Twitter.com; the same results returned by people search
on Twitter.com will be returned by using this API (about being listed in the People Search). It is only possible
to retrieve the first 1000 matches from this API.
Parameters
• q – The query to run against people search.
• per_page – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve. May not be greater than 20.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of User objects

7.4 Direct Message Methods

API.direct_messages([since_id ][, max_id ][, count ][, page ][, full_text ])

Returns direct messages sent to the authenticating user.
Parameters
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.

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• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
• full_text – A boolean indicating whether or not the full text of a message should be
returned. If False the message text returned will be truncated to 140 chars. Defaults to
False.
Return type list of DirectMessage objects
API.get_direct_message([id ][, full_text ])
Returns a specific direct message.
Parameters
• id – |id|
• full_text – A boolean indicating whether or not the full text of a message should be
returned. If False the message text returned will be truncated to 140 chars. Defaults to
False.
Return type DirectMessage object
API.sent_direct_messages([since_id ][, max_id ][, count ][, page ][, full_text ])
Returns direct messages sent by the authenticating user.
Parameters
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• count – Specifies the number of statuses to retrieve.
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
• full_text – A boolean indicating whether or not the full text of a message should be
returned. If False the message text returned will be truncated to 140 chars. Defaults to
False.
Return type list of DirectMessage objects
API.send_direct_message(user/screen_name/user_id, text)
Sends a new direct message to the specified user from the authenticating user.
Parameters
• user – The ID or screen name of the recipient user.
• screen_name – screen name of the recipient user
• user_id – user id of the recipient user
Return type DirectMessage object
API.destroy_direct_message(id)
Destroy a direct message. Authenticating user must be the recipient of the direct message.
Parameters id – The ID of the direct message to destroy.
Return type DirectMessage object

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7.5 Friendship Methods

API.create_friendship(id/screen_name/user_id[, follow ])
Create a new friendship with the specified user (aka follow).
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• follow – Enable notifications for the target user in addition to becoming friends.
Return type User object
API.destroy_friendship(id/screen_name/user_id)
Destroy a friendship with the specified user (aka unfollow).
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
Return type User object
API.show_friendship(source_id/source_screen_name, target_id/target_screen_name)
Returns detailed information about the relationship between two users.
Parameters
• source_id – The user_id of the subject user.
• source_screen_name – The screen_name of the subject user.
• target_id – The user_id of the target user.
• target_screen_name – The screen_name of the target user.
Return type Friendship object
API.friends_ids(id/screen_name/user_id[, cursor ])
Returns an array containing the IDs of users being followed by the specified user.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to
page back and forth in the list.

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Return type list of Integers

API.followers_ids(id/screen_name/user_id)
Returns an array containing the IDs of users following the specified user.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
• cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to
page back and forth in the list.
Return type list of Integers

7.6 Account Methods

API.verify_credentials()
Verify the supplied user credentials are valid.
Return type User object if credentials are valid, otherwise False
API.rate_limit_status()
Returns the remaining number of API requests available to the requesting user before the API limit is reached
for the current hour. Calls to rate_limit_status do not count against the rate limit. If authentication credentials
are provided, the rate limit status for the authenticating user is returned. Otherwise, the rate limit status for the
requester’s IP address is returned.
Return type JSON object
API.set_delivery_device(device)
Sets which device Twitter delivers updates to for the authenticating user. Sending “none” as the device parameter
will disable SMS updates.
Parameters device – Must be one of: sms, none
Return type User object
API.update_profile_colors([profile_background_color ][, profile_text_color ][, profile_link_color
][, profile_sidebar_fill_color ][, profile_sidebar_border_color ])
Sets one or more hex values that control the color scheme of the authenticating user’s profile page on twitter.com.
Parameters
• profile_background_color –
• profile_text_color –
• profile_link_color –
• profile_sidebar_fill_color –
• profile_sidebar_border_color –
Return type User object

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API.update_profile_image(filename)
Update the authenticating user’s profile image. Valid formats: GIF, JPG, or PNG
Parameters filename – local path to image file to upload. Not a remote URL!
Return type User object
API.update_profile_background_image(filename)
Update authenticating user’s background image. Valid formats: GIF, JPG, or PNG
Parameters filename – local path to image file to upload. Not a remote URL!
Return type User object
API.update_profile([name ][, url ][, location ][, description ])
Sets values that users are able to set under the “Account” tab of their settings page.
Parameters
• name – Maximum of 20 characters
• url – Maximum of 100 characters. Will be prepended with “http://” if not present
• location – Maximum of 30 characters
• description – Maximum of 160 characters
Return type User object

7.7 Favorite Methods

API.favorites([id ][, page ])

Returns the favorite statuses for the authenticating user or user specified by the ID parameter.
Parameters
• id – The ID or screen name of the user to request favorites
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of Status objects
API.create_favorite(id)
Favorites the status specified in the ID parameter as the authenticating user.
Parameters id – The numerical ID of the status.
Return type Status object
API.destroy_favorite(id)
Un-favorites the status specified in the ID parameter as the authenticating user.
Parameters id – The numerical ID of the status.
Return type Status object

7.8 Block Methods

API.create_block(id/screen_name/user_id)
Blocks the user specified in the ID parameter as the authenticating user. Destroys a friendship to the blocked
user if it exists.

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Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
Return type User object
API.destroy_block(id/screen_name/user_id)
Un-blocks the user specified in the ID parameter for the authenticating user.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
Return type User object
API.blocks([page ])
Returns an array of user objects that the authenticating user is blocking.
Parameters page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of User objects
API.blocks_ids()
Returns an array of numeric user ids the authenticating user is blocking.
Return type list of Integers

7.9 Spam Reporting Methods

API.report_spam([id/user_id/screen_name ])
The user specified in the id is blocked by the authenticated user and reported as a spammer.
Parameters
• id – Specifies the ID or screen name of the user.
• screen_name – Specifies the screen name of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when
a valid screen name is also a user ID.
• user_id – Specifies the ID of the user. Helpful for disambiguating when a valid user ID
is also a valid screen name.
Return type User object

7.10 Saved Searches Methods

API.saved_searches()
Returns the authenticated user’s saved search queries.

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Return type list of SavedSearch objects

API.get_saved_search(id)
Retrieve the data for a saved search owned by the authenticating user specified by the given id.
Parameters id – The id of the saved search to be retrieved.
Return type SavedSearch object
API.create_saved_search(query)
Creates a saved search for the authenticated user.
Parameters query – The query of the search the user would like to save.
Return type SavedSearch object
API.destroy_saved_search(id)
Destroys a saved search for the authenticated user. The search specified by id must be owned by the authenti-
cating user.
Parameters id – The id of the saved search to be deleted.
Return type SavedSearch object

7.11 Help Methods

API.search(q[, lang ][, locale ][, rpp ][, page ][, since_id ][, geocode ][, show_user ])
Returns tweets that match a specified query.
Parameters
• q – the search query string
• lang – Restricts tweets to the given language, given by an ISO 639-1 code.
• locale – Specify the language of the query you are sending. This is intended for language-
specific clients and the default should work in the majority of cases.
• rpp – The number of tweets to return per page, up to a max of 100.
• page – The page number (starting at 1) to return, up to a max of roughly 1500 results (based
on rpp * page.
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• geocode – Returns tweets by users located within a given radius of the given lati-
tude/longitude. The location is preferentially taking from the Geotagging API, but will fall
back to their Twitter profile. The parameter value is specified by “latitide,longitude,radius”,
where radius units must be specified as either “mi” (miles) or “km” (kilometers). Note that
you cannot use the near operator via the API to geocode arbitrary locations; however you
can use this geocode parameter to search near geocodes directly.
• show_user – When true, prepends “<user>:” to the beginning of the tweet. This is useful
for readers that do not display Atom’s author field. The default is false.
Return type list of SearchResult objects

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7.12 List Methods

API.create_list(name[, mode ][, description ])

Creates a new list for the authenticated user. Accounts are limited to 20 lists.
Parameters
• name – The name of the new list.
• mode – Whether your list is public or private. Values can be public or private. Lists are
public by default if no mode is specified.
• description – The description of the list you are creating.
Return type List object
API.destroy_list(slug)
Deletes the specified list. Must be owned by the authenticated user.
Parameters slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
Return type List object
API.update_list(slug[, name ][, mode ][, description ])
Updates the specified list. Note: this current throws a 500. Twitter is looking into the issue.
Parameters
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• name – What you’d like to change the lists name to.
• mode – Whether your list is public or private. Values can be public or private. Lists are
public by default if no mode is specified.
• description – What you’d like to change the list description to.
Return type List object
API.lists([cursor ])
List the lists of the specified user. Private lists will be included if the authenticated users is the same as the user
who’s lists are being returned.
Parameters cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to page
back and forth in the list.
Return type list of List objects
API.lists_memberships([cursor ])
List the lists the specified user has been added to.
Parameters cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to page
back and forth in the list.
Return type list of List objects
API.lists_subscriptions([cursor ])
List the lists the specified user follows.
Parameters cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to page
back and forth in the list.

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Return type list of List objects

API.list_timeline(owner, slug[, since_id ][, max_id ][, per_page ][, page ])
Show tweet timeline for members of the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• since_id – Returns only statuses with an ID greater than (that is, more recent than) the
specified ID.
• max_id – Returns only statuses with an ID less than (that is, older than) or equal to the
specified ID.
• per_page – Number of results per a page
• page – Specifies the page of results to retrieve. Note: there are pagination limits.
Return type list of Status objects
API.get_list(owner, slug)
Show the specified list. Private lists will only be shown if the authenticated user owns the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
Return type List object
API.add_list_member(slug, id)
Add a member to a list. The authenticated user must own the list to be able to add members to it. Lists are
limited to having 500 members.
Parameters
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• id – the ID of the user to add as a member
Return type List object
API.remove_list_member(slug, id)
Removes the specified member from the list. The authenticated user must be the list’s owner to remove members
from the list.
Parameters
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• id – the ID of the user to remove as a member
Return type List object
API.list_members(owner, slug, cursor)
Returns the members of the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list

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• cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to
page back and forth in the list.
Return type list of User objects
API.is_list_member(owner, slug, id)
Check if a user is a member of the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• id – the ID of the user to check
Return type User object if user is a member of list, otherwise False.
API.subscribe_list(owner, slug)
Make the authenticated user follow the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
Return type List object
API.unsubscribe_list(owner, slug)
Unsubscribes the authenticated user form the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
Return type List object
API.list_subscribers(owner, slug[, cursor ])
Returns the subscribers of the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• cursor – Breaks the results into pages. Provide a value of -1 to begin paging. Provide
values as returned to in the response body’s next_cursor and previous_cursor attributes to
page back and forth in the list.
Return type list of User objects
API.is_subscribed_list(owner, slug, id)
Check if the specified user is a subscriber of the specified list.
Parameters
• owner – the screen name of the owner of the list
• slug – the slug name or numerical ID of the list
• id – the ID of the user to check
Return type User object if user is subscribed to the list, otherwise False.

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7.13 Trends Methods

API.trends_available()
Returns the locations that Twitter has trending topic information for. The response is an array of “locations”
that encode the location’s WOEID (a Yahoo! Where On Earth ID) and some other human-readable information
such as a canonical name and country the location belongs in.
Return type JSON object
API.trends_place(id[, exclude ])
Returns the top 10 trending topics for a specific WOEID, if trending information is available for it.
The response is an array of “trend” objects that encode the name of the trending topic, the query parameter that
can be used to search for the topic on Twitter Search, and the Twitter Search URL.
This information is cached for 5 minutes. Requesting more frequently than that will not return any more data,
and will count against your rate limit usage.
Parameters
• id – The Yahoo! Where On Earth ID of the location to return trending information for.
Global information is available by using 1 as the WOEID.
• exclude – Setting this equal to hashtags will remove all hashtags from the trends list.
Return type JSON object
API.trends_closest(lat, long)
Returns the locations that Twitter has trending topic information for, closest to a specified location.
The response is an array of “locations” that encode the location’s WOEID and some other human-readable
information such as a canonical name and country the location belongs in.
A WOEID is a Yahoo! Where On Earth ID.
Parameters
• lat – If provided with a long parameter the available trend locations will be sorted by
distance, nearest to furthest, to the co-ordinate pair. The valid ranges for longitude is -180.0
to +180.0 (West is negative, East is positive) inclusive.
• long – If provided with a lat parameter the available trend locations will be sorted by
distance, nearest to furthest, to the co-ordinate pair. The valid ranges for longitude is -180.0
to +180.0 (West is negative, East is positive) inclusive.
Return type JSON object

7.14 Geo Methods

API.reverse_geocode([lat ][, long ][, accuracy ][, granularity ][, max_results ])

Given a latitude and longitude, looks for places (cities and neighbourhoods) whose IDs can be specified in a call
to update_status() to appear as the name of the location. This call provides a detailed response about the
location in question; the nearby_places() function should be preferred for getting a list of places nearby
without great detail.
Parameters
• lat – The location’s latitude.
• long – The location’s longitude.

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• accuracy – Specify the “region” in which to search, such as a number (then this is a radius
in meters, but it can also take a string that is suffixed with ft to specify feet). If this is not
passed in, then it is assumed to be 0m
• granularity – Assumed to be ‘neighborhood’ by default; can also be ‘city’.
• max_results – A hint as to the maximum number of results to return. This is only a
guideline, which may not be adhered to.
API.reverse_geocode([lat ][, long ][, ip ][, accuracy ][, granularity ][, max_results ])
Given a latitude and longitude, looks for nearby places (cities and neighbourhoods) whose IDs can be specified
in a call to update_status() to appear as the name of the location. This call provides a detailed response
about the location in question; the nearby_places() function should be preferred for getting a list of places
nearby without great detail.
Parameters
• lat – The location’s latitude.
• long – The location’s longitude.
• ip – The location’s IP address. Twitter will attempt to geolocate using the IP address.
• accuracy – Specify the “region” in which to search, such as a number (then this is a radius
in meters, but it can also take a string that is suffixed with ft to specify feet). If this is not
passed in, then it is assumed to be 0m
• granularity – Assumed to be ‘neighborhood’ by default; can also be ‘city’.
• max_results – A hint as to the maximum number of results to return. This is only a
guideline, which may not be adhered to.
API.geo_id(id)
Given id of a place, provide more details about that place.
Parameters id – Valid Twitter ID of a location.

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 CHAPTER 8

tweepy.error — Exceptions

The exceptions are available in the tweepy module directly, which means tweepy.error itself does not need to
be imported. For example, tweepy.error.TweepError is available as tweepy.TweepError.
exception TweepError
The main exception Tweepy uses. Is raised for a number of things.
When a TweepError is raised due to an error Twitter responded with, the error code (as described in
the API documentation) can be accessed at TweepError.message[0]['code']. Note, however, that
TweepErrors also may be raised with other things as message (for example plain error reason strings).
exception RateLimitError
Is raised when an API method fails due to hitting Twitter’s rate limit. Makes for easy handling of the rate limit
specifically.
Inherits from TweepError, so except TweepError will catch a RateLimitError too.

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 CHAPTER 9

Indices and tables

• genindex
• search

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38 Chapter 9. Indices and tables

 Index

A H
add_list_member() (API method), 31 home_timeline() (API method), 20
API (built-in class), 19
I
B is_list_member() (API method), 32
blocks() (API method), 28 is_subscribed_list() (API method), 32
blocks_ids() (API method), 28
L
C list_members() (API method), 31
create_block() (API method), 27 list_subscribers() (API method), 32
create_favorite() (API method), 27 list_timeline() (API method), 31
create_friendship() (API method), 25 lists() (API method), 30
create_list() (API method), 30 lists_memberships() (API method), 30
create_saved_search() (API method), 29 lists_subscriptions() (API method), 30

D M
destroy_block() (API method), 28 me() (API method), 23
destroy_direct_message() (API method), 24 mentions_timeline() (API method), 21
destroy_favorite() (API method), 27
destroy_friendship() (API method), 25 R
destroy_list() (API method), 30 rate_limit_status() (API method), 26
destroy_saved_search() (API method), 29 RateLimitError, 35
destroy_status() (API method), 22 remove_list_member() (API method), 31
direct_messages() (API method), 23 report_spam() (API method), 28
retweet() (API method), 22
F retweets() (API method), 22
favorites() (API method), 27 retweets_of_me() (API method), 20
followers() (API method), 23 reverse_geocode() (API method), 33, 34
followers_ids() (API method), 26
friends_ids() (API method), 25 S
saved_searches() (API method), 28
G search() (API method), 29
geo_id() (API method), 34 search_users() (API method), 23
get_direct_message() (API method), 24 send_direct_message() (API method), 24
get_list() (API method), 31 sent_direct_messages() (API method), 24
get_saved_search() (API method), 29 set_delivery_device() (API method), 26
get_status() (API method), 21 show_friendship() (API method), 25
get_user() (API method), 22 statuses_lookup() (API method), 20
subscribe_list() (API method), 32

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T
trends_available() (API method), 33
trends_closest() (API method), 33
trends_place() (API method), 33
TweepError, 35

U
unsubscribe_list() (API method), 32
update_list() (API method), 30
update_profile() (API method), 27
update_profile_background_image() (API method), 27
update_profile_colors() (API method), 26
update_profile_image() (API method), 26
update_status() (API method), 21
update_with_media() (API method), 22
user_timeline() (API method), 20

V
verify_credentials() (API method), 26

40 Index