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Chapter 177. Twitter

Twitter

Available as of Camel 2.10
The Twitter component enables the most useful features of the Twitter API by encapsulating Twitter4J. It allows direct, polling, or event-driven consumption of timelines, users, trends, and direct messages. Also, it supports producing messages as status updates or direct messages.
Twitter now requires the use of OAuth for all client application authentication. In order to use camel-twitter with your account, you'll need to create a new application within Twitter at https://dev.twitter.com/apps/new and grant the application access to your account. Finally, generate your access token and secret.
Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
    <artifactId>camel-twitter</artifactId>
    <version>${camel-version}</version>
</dependency>

URI format

twitter://endpoint[?options]

TwitterComponent:

The twitter component can be configured with the Twitter account settings which is mandatory to configure before using. You can also configure these options directly in the endpoint.
Option Description
consumerKey The consumer key
consumerSecret The consumer secret
accessToken The access token
accessTokenSecret The access token secret

Consumer Endpoints:

Rather than the endpoints returning a List through one single route exchange, camel-twitter creates one route exchange per returned object. As an example, if timeline/home results in five statuses, the route will be executed five times (once for each Status).
Endpoint Context Body Type Notice
directmessage direct, polling twitter4j.DirectMessage
search direct, polling twitter4j.Status
streaming/filter event, polling twitter4j.Status
streaming/sample event, polling twitter4j.Status
streaming/user event, polling
twitter4j.Status
twitter4j.DirectMessage
twitter4j.UserList
Camel 2.16: To receive tweets from protected users and accounts.
Camel 2.17: DirectMessages, Favorites, Lists, Following events are now supported
timeline/home direct, polling twitter4j.Status
timeline/mentions direct, polling twitter4j.Status
timeline/retweetsofme direct, polling twitter4j.Status
timeline/user direct, polling twitter4j.Status

Producer Endpoints:

Endpoint Body Type
directmessage String
search List<twitter4j.Status>
timeline/user String

URI Options

Name Default Value Description
type direct direct, event, or polling
delay Delay between polls. The value is 60 seconds by default. The value is in seconds for Camel 2.16 or older. And in milliseconds from Camel 2.17 onwards.
consumerKey null Consumer Key. Can also be configured on the TwitterComponent level instead.
consumerSecret null Consumer Secret. Can also be configured on the TwitterComponent level instead.
accessToken null Access Token. Can also be configured on the TwitterComponent level instead.
accessTokenSecret null Access Token Secret. Can also be configured on the TwitterComponent level instead.
user null Username, used for user timeline consumption, direct message production, etc.
locations null 'lat,lon;lat,lon;...' Bounding boxes, created by pairs of lat/lons. Can be used for streaming/filter
keywords null 'foo1,foo2,foo3...' Can be used for search and streaming/filter. See Advanced search for keywords syntax for searching with for example OR.
userIds null 'username,username...' Can be used for streaming/filter
filterOld true Filter out old tweets, that has previously been polled. This state is stored in memory only, and based on last tweet id. Since Camel 2.11.0 The search producer supports this option
sinceId 1 Camel 2.11.0: The last tweet id which will be used for pulling the tweets. It is useful when the camel route is restarted after a long running.
lang null Camel 2.11.0: The lang string ISO_639-1 which will be used for searching
count null Camel 2.11.0: Limiting number of results per page.
numberOfPages 1 Camel 2.11.0: The number of pages result which you want camel-twitter to consume.
httpProxyHost
null
Camel 2.12.3: The http proxy host which can be used for the camel-twitter.
httpProxyPort
null
Camel 2.12.3: The http proxy port which can be used for the camel-twitter.
httpProxyUser
null
Camel 2.12.3: The http proxy user which can be used for the camel-twitter.
httpProxyPassword
null
Camel 2.12.3: The http proxy password which can be used for the camel-twitter.
latitude
Camel 2.16: Used by the non-stream geography search to search by latitude. You need to configure all the following options: longitude, latitude, radius, and distanceMetric.
longitude
Camel 2.16: Used by the non-stream geography search to search by longitude. You need to configure all the following options: longitude, latitude, radius, and distanceMetric.
radius
Camel 2.16: Used by the non-stream geography search to search by radius. You need to configure all the following options: longitude, latitude, radius, and distanceMetric.
distanceMetric
km
Camel 2.16: Used by the non-stream geography search, to search by radius using the configured metrics. The unit can either be mi for miles, or km for kilometers. You need to configure all the following options: longitude, latitude, radius, and distanceMetric.

Message header

Name Description
CamelTwitterKeywords This header is used by the search producer to change the search key words dynamically.
CamelTwitterSearchLanguage Camel 2.11.0: This header can override the option of lang which set the search language for the search endpoint dynamically
CamelTwitterCount Camel 2.11.0 This header can override the option of count which sets the max twitters that will be returned.
CamelTwitterNumberOfPages Camel 2.11.0 This header can converrid the option of numberOfPages which sets how many pages we want to twitter returns.
CamelTwitterNumberOfPages Camel 2.17.0: The type of event received (see org.apache.camel.component.twitter.consumer.TwitterEventType).
CamelTwitterNumberOfPages Camel 2.17.0: Identifies a party.
CamelTwitterNumberOfPages Camel 2.17.0: Identifies a party role.

Message body

All message bodies utilize objects provided by the Twitter4J API.

API rate limits

Twitter REST APIs encapsulated by Twitter4J are subjected to API Rate Limiting. You can find the per method limits in the API Rate Limits documentation. Note that endpoints/resources not listed in that page are default to 15 requests per allotted user per window.

To create a status update within your Twitter profile, send this producer a String body.

from("direct:foo")
  .to("twitter://timeline/user?consumerKey=[s]&consumerSecret=[s]&accessToken=[s]&accessTokenSecret=[s]);

To poll, every 60 sec., all statuses on your home timeline:

from("twitter://timeline/home?type=polling&delay=60&consumerKey=[s]&consumerSecret=[s]&accessToken=[s]&accessTokenSecret=[s]")
  .to("bean:blah");

To search for all statuses with the keyword 'camel':

from("twitter://search?type=direct&keywords=camel&consumerKey=[s]&consumerSecret=[s]&accessToken=[s]&accessTokenSecret=[s]")
  .to("bean:blah");

Searching using a producer with static keywords

from("direct:foo")
  .to("twitter://search?keywords=camel&consumerKey=[s]&consumerSecret=[s]&accessToken=[s]&accessTokenSecret=[s]");

Searching using a producer with dynamic keywords from header

In the bar header we have the keywords we want to search, so we can assign this value to the CamelTwitterKeywords header.
from("direct:foo")
  .setHeader("CamelTwitterKeywords", header("bar"))
  .to("twitter://search?consumerKey=[s]&consumerSecret=[s]&accessToken=[s]&accessTokenSecret=[s]");

Example