Twitter/Facebook API for Ruby.

Question

I want to write a Ruby application through which:

1. I can submit tweets to twitter.
2. I can submit a post to facebook.
3. I can manage real-time stats of tweets

Is there any twitter/facebook api for Ruby?

Answer 1

The Twitter API is a RESTful web service. It's completely language agnostic. Use whatever language you want.

Not sure about Facebook.

Answer 2

I use the Twitter gem and am quite happy with it.

For Facebook, there is the Facebooker gem.

Answer 3

Streams of tweets:

Tweetmon is a great gem for keeping real-time track of tweets. Here's an example of using it to get a stream of tweets on a specific keyword

 #!/usr/local/bin/ruby 

 if ARGV.size==1
   keyword = ARGV.shift
 else
   puts 'tweetmon usage: tweetmon <keyword>'
   exit 1
 end

 require 'yaml'
 require 'rubygems'
 require 'tweetstream'

 config = YAML::load(File.open(File.expand_path('~/.twitter')))
 user =config['username']
 password =config['password']

 TweetStream::Client.new(user,password).track(keyword) do |status|  
   puts "[#{status.created_at}-#{status.user.screen_name}] #{status.text}"
 end

To use this gem you need: gem sources -a http://gems.github.com gem install intridea-tweetstream

To submit a tweet is just a HTTP POST - doesn't need any extra libraries to do this.

Answer 4

Two more libraries that didn't get mentioned yet:

• twitter4r: http://twitter4r.rubyforge.org/
• Twibot: http://cjohansen.no/en/ruby/twibot%5Fa%5Fmicroframework%5Ffor%5Ftwitter%5Fbots%5Fin%5Fruby

Answer 5

If you're inclined to retain more control over how you use the Twitter and Facebook APIs you can use the Wrest gem.

Take a look at the facebook (http://is.gd/bJspX) and twitter (http://is.gd/bJsqV) examples.

Also, while both the Twitter and Facebook APIs are HTTP APIs, they are not RESTful despite their claims to the contrary.