How to use gnip-python to retrieve activity from Twitter, Delicious, Digg, etc.

Date: 2008-08-01 | Modified: 2009-03-25 | Tags: python, webdev

Create an account at http://www.gnipcentral.com/
Download gnip-python from github.com.

Unpack it:

$ tar -zxvf gnip-gnip-python-028364a70bd40dda0069ecdd3e7f6fff23bb985e.tar.gz

Move it to your example directory:

$ mkdir ~/src/python/gnip-example
$ mv gnip-gnip-python-028364a70bd40dda0069ecdd3e7f6fff23bb985e/*.py ~/src/python/gnip-example

Create an example file called ~/src/python/gnip-example/gnip-example.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from gnip import *

gnip = Gnip("[email protected]", "yourpassword")

for publisher in ["twitter", "digg", "delicious"]:
    activities = gnip.get_publisher_activities(publisher)
    print
    print publisher
    for activity in activities[:5]:
        print activity

Run it:

$ python gnip-example.py

And get the following results:

twitter
[derricklo, 2008-08-01T22:49:59+00:00, tweet, http://twitter.com/derricklo/statuses/875165550]
[sam_metal, 2008-08-01T22:50:01+00:00, tweet, http://twitter.com/sam_metal/statuses/875165564]
[lalatina, 2008-08-01T22:49:59+00:00, tweet, http://twitter.com/lalatina/statuses/875165544]
[Nochipra, 2008-08-01T22:50:01+00:00, tweet, http://twitter.com/Nochipra/statuses/875165562]
[jmcgaha, 2008-08-01T22:50:01+00:00, tweet, http://twitter.com/jmcgaha/statuses/875165556]

digg
[DAlexopoulos, 2008-08-01T18:50:08+00:00, submission, http://digg.com/health/CLA_Conjugated_Linoleic_Acid_Explained]
[EradicateIV, 2008-08-01T18:50:05+00:00, submission, http://digg.com/pc_games/Pittco_Iron_Storm_9]
[vivianpetman, 2008-08-01T18:49:58+00:00, submission, http://digg.com/business_finance/Dub_Me_Now_Turns_Business_Cards_into_Bits_and_Bytes_Small]
[portia7896, 2008-08-01T18:49:53+00:00, submission, http://digg.com/world_news/Radioactive_water_yum]
[hhdepot, 2008-08-01T18:49:52+00:00, submission, http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Why_WE_are_democrats_in_2008_Original_Video]

delicious
[hanasama1, 2008-08-01T22:49:55+00:00, delicious, http://www.birchmere.com/]
[Chrmftcotl, 2008-08-01T22:49:54+00:00, delicious, http://www.shaunlow.com/a-definitive-stumbleupon-guide-driving-traffic-to-websites/]
[shankar, 2008-08-01T22:49:53+00:00, delicious, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jul/26/salmanrushdie.bookerprize]
[grzyweasel, 2008-08-01T22:49:53+00:00, delicious, http://patterntap.com/]
[metaffect, 2008-08-01T22:50:05+00:00, delicious, http://dean.edwards.name/]

Pretty cool.

This is just scratching the surface of what you can do with gnip. You can also filter by time or user. Or get XML output. Or you can publish to gnip yourself. See the gnip-python README for more python examples or the Gnip API for more detailed information. Also, here is a list of Gnip publishers.