Application Developer » twitter

User Authentication Through Twitter OAuth or cURL

Alex — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:43:51 +0000

Twitter offers 2 types of authentication. Using the standard cURL GET HTTP protocols or the new and fancy OAuth. cURL is easy, we all get it, and it works great. However, OAuth offers a wide range of fancy features, most importantly, securtiy.

Taken from the OAuth website – An open protocol to allow secure API authorization in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications. It’s a terrific idea and I’m glad someone is coming out with it. To make things easier there are also developers who’ve already done the work for you. Here’s a pre-built script that does all the OAuth for you. There’s also a Beginners Guide.

When the benefits are increased security, a higher level of compatibility, and new fancy technology, why bother with cURL anymore?

It’s pretty simple. cURL is easier, and it doesn’t require anything beyond what we know. Setting everything up with OAuth takes a few hours to wrap your head around. Compared to figuring out OAuth, here’s how to connect with cURL.

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
01 
02 $loginUsername = "username";   
03 $loginPassword = "password";
04  
05 $url = "https://twitter.com/statuses/followers/" . $username . ".xml";
06  
07 $curl_handle = curl_init();
08 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
09 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, 1); //GET method
10 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC); //basic authentication
11 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $loginUsername . ":" . $loginPassword); //login
12 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
13 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); //Return the string
14 $buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
15 curl_close($curl_handle);
16

There you have it, you're logged in, or at the very least authenticated. Here's how to report back:

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1 
2 // check for success or failure
3 if (empty($buffer) || strpos($buffer, "Could not authenticate you")) {
4  $replyStatus = "Failed: Please check your username and password";
5 } else {
6  $replyStatus = "Success: You are logged in.";
7 }
8

Twitter currently supports both without offering many benefits to either choice. cURL isn't really anything new but it's simple while OAuth will continue to develop. For serious developers who plan for longevity with their Twitter Application sites, I highly recommend taking the extra effort to at least understand OAuth enough to switch to it when they demand it. In the meantime, forget it and stick with cURL until the benefits outweigh the cons.

BackType Tweetcount 1.2 with su.pr Short URL Support

Alex — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:34:08 +0000

The new BackType Tweetcount just launched last night. With a little work, it’ll support your very own custom shortened URL in the re-tweet. We like su.pr. Thanks to a bit of help from Michael of BackType, we’re able to figure out this mod overnight.

The previous version of BackType worked well but it always re-tweet your posts through awe.sm. That’s great and all, but what about the rest of us who have our own click tracking or even our own custom shorteners.

So to make it better, last night we added a new option for developers to add a function into the code that will allow them to build their own custom functions and generate their own custom links. It’s really just a meta tag, “bttc_short_url” that gets generated the first time the post is viewed. Here’s the best part. Since the short url is generated the FIRST time everything is viewed. Just by browsing your pages, and olf non-syndicated links are automatically added into su.pr. If you use another shortening service, it’ll do the same for that too.

After grabbing the latest BackType Tweetcount, load up your favorite editing tool and add this function to the very bottom of the code:

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
01 
02 function bttc_supr($url) {
03 	$SU_username = "username";
04 	$SU_api = "api_key";
05 	$SU_url = "http://su.pr/api";
06 	$SU_vars = "?url=$url&login=$SU_username&apiKey=$SU_api";
07  
08 	$curl_handle = curl_init();
09 	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $SU_url . $SU_vars);
10 	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
11 	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
12 	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, 1); 
13 	$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
14 	curl_close($curl_handle);
15 	//$SU_newURL = str_replace("su.pr/", "", $buffer);
16 	$SU_newURL = $buffer;
17  
18 	return $SU_newURL;
19 }
20

As a quick note there. The commented out //$SU_newurl is for those that host their own url shortcodes on their domain using the su.pr htaccess modification.

Go to Line 180, insert this code:

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
1 
2 if (get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true) != '') {
3     $button .= 'tweetcount_short_url=\'' . wp_specialchars(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true), '1') . '\';';
4 }
5

Then go to Line 161, search for this code:

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
1 
2 if ($meta == '') {
3 	add_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_cache', time() . ':' . $cnt);
4 } else {
5 	update_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_cache', time() . ':' . $cnt);
6 }
7

Directly below the code, paste the following:

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
1 
2 if (get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true) == '') {
3 	$short_url = bttc_supr($url);
4 	if ($short_url) {
5 		add_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', $short_url);
6 	}
7 }
8

And that's it. Edit the first bttc_supr function into basically whatever you want, and the short URL will automatically generated the first time the posts are viewed. It'll let you re-tweet with your own custom links, and even add old content that you haven't added to your shortening admin pages for you. This is a pretty raw version of doing this. BackType will be launching an updated version soon with these modifications to make it easier for users that don't want to edit as much code.

How to Post to Twitter using cURL

Alex — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:20:36 +0000

Having a choice of 50 Wordpress plugins are great when you are using Wordpress but what do you do when you have custom made software or don’t use Wordpress?

Using this handy cURL php code, you can post to Twitter from anywhere on your website. You can include the code as is, or just stick it into a function that you can include across all your scripts that need it.

 PHP |   copy code | ?  
01 
02 // Set username and password
03 $username = '$username';
04 $password = '$password';
05 // The message you want to send
06 $message = $TWITTER_POST;
07 // The twitter API address
08 $url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
09 // Alternative JSON version
10 // $url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json';
11 // Set up and execute the curl process
12 $curl_handle = curl_init();
13 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
14 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
15 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
16 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
17 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
18 curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
19 $buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
20 curl_close($curl_handle);
21 // check for success or failure
22 if (empty($buffer)) {
23 //    echo 'message';
24 } else {
25 //    echo 'success';
26 }
27

I commented out the messages but I left them in for debugging purposes. Just uncomment then and start testing. Here's the end result... as if we didn't know what it would look like anyway.

This is really just a snippet, you can expand on this and even create forms that request the username and password for distributable scripts or replies from your traffic.

01
02	$loginUsername = "username";
03	$loginPassword = "password";
04
05	$url = "https://twitter.com/statuses/followers/" . $username . ".xml";
06
07	$curl_handle = curl_init();
08	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
09	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, 1); //GET method
10	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC); //basic authentication
11	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $loginUsername . ":" . $loginPassword); //login
12	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
13	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); //Return the string
14	$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
15	curl_close($curl_handle);
16

1
2	// check for success or failure
3	if (empty($buffer) \|\| strpos($buffer, "Could not authenticate you")) {
4	$replyStatus = "Failed: Please check your username and password";
5	} else {
6	$replyStatus = "Success: You are logged in.";
7	}
8

01
02	function bttc_supr($url) {
03	$SU_username = "username";
04	$SU_api = "api_key";
05	$SU_url = "http://su.pr/api";
06	$SU_vars = "?url=$url&login=$SU_username&apiKey=$SU_api";
07
08	$curl_handle = curl_init();
09	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $SU_url . $SU_vars);
10	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
11	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
12	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPGET, 1);
13	$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
14	curl_close($curl_handle);
15	//$SU_newURL = str_replace("su.pr/", "", $buffer);
16	$SU_newURL = $buffer;
17
18	return $SU_newURL;
19	}
20

1
2	if (get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true) != '') {
3	$button .= 'tweetcount_short_url=\'' . wp_specialchars(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true), '1') . '\';';
4	}
5

1
2	if ($meta == '') {
3	add_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_cache', time() . ':' . $cnt);
4	} else {
5	update_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_cache', time() . ':' . $cnt);
6	}
7

1
2	if (get_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', true) == '') {
3	$short_url = bttc_supr($url);
4	if ($short_url) {
5	add_post_meta($post->ID, 'bttc_short_url', $short_url);
6	}
7	}
8

01
02	// Set username and password
03	$username = '$username';
04	$password = '$password';
05	// The message you want to send
06	$message = $TWITTER_POST;
07	// The twitter API address
08	$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
09	// Alternative JSON version
10	// $url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json';
11	// Set up and execute the curl process
12	$curl_handle = curl_init();
13	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
14	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
15	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
16	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
17	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
18	curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
19	$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
20	curl_close($curl_handle);
21	// check for success or failure
22	if (empty($buffer)) {
23	// echo 'message';
24	} else {
25	// echo 'success';
26	}
27