The world of Ian Hill

Twitterbots - Tweeting pictures

In the previous page we learned how to post random tweets to your Twitter page

Pages in this series...

Page 1: Overview
Page 2: Tweeting randomly
Page 3: Tweeting pictures
Page 4: Tweeting new followers
Page 5: Tweeting replies to mentions
Page 6: Scanning for trending hashtags
Page 7: Automating everything

Previous code example

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import os
import subprocess
import time
import datetime
from twython import Twython
from time import strftime

CONSUMER_KEY = 'YOUR CONSUMER KEY GOES HERE'
CONSUMER_SECRET = 'YOUR CONSUMER KEY SECRET GOES HERE'
ACCESS_KEY = 'YOUR ACCESS KEY GOES HERE'
ACCESS_SECRET = 'YOUR ACCESS SECRET GOES HERE'

twitter = Twython(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, ACCESS_KEY, ACCESS_SECRET)

photo = open("images/picture.jpg", 'rb')

image = twitter.upload_media(media=photo)

try:
   twitter.update_status(status="Hello world :)", media_ids=[image['media_id']])
except:
   print str(sys.exc_info())
   sys.exit()

Running the above code will tweet the image file thats at /home/pi/images/picture.jpg to your timeline, if all you wanted to do is tweet the same picture and caption once a day, then this is all you need. #unfollow

So why don't we learn how to fill the folder with different pictures, and tweet one at random, you can even delete the picture after it's been tweeted, so it won't be tweeted again, although you will need to refill the picture folder occasionally

This is the way Vader does it

#!/usr/bin/env python
# New imports to be aware of
import sys
import os
import os.path import subprocess
import time
import datetime
import glob from twython import Twython
from time import strftime
from random import randint
from random import shuffle

# Set up Twitter
CONSUMER_KEY = 'YOUR CONSUMER KEY GOES HERE'
CONSUMER_SECRET = 'YOUR CONSUMER KEY SECRET GOES HERE'
ACCESS_KEY = 'YOUR ACCESS KEY GOES HERE'
ACCESS_SECRET = 'YOUR ACCESS SECRET GOES HERE'

twitter = Twython(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, ACCESS_KEY, ACCESS_SECRET)

# Set up the caption that's tweeted with the picture
hashtag = "#Cats #CatStareOfDeath #CatsOfTwitter #CatsLife #Catloaf #MEOW #SilentlyJudgingYou #DeathToAllHumans #KillTheHumans #Genius"

# Scan the picture folder for pictures
images = glob.glob("/home/pi/images/*")
imageLength = len (images)
if imageLength == 0:
   print "No pictures found"
   sys.exit()
else:
   image = (randint(0,imageLength-1))
   imagez = images[image]
   photo = open(imagez, 'rb')
   image = twitter.upload_media(media=photo)
   try:
      twitter.update_status(status=hashtag, media_ids=[image['media_id']])
      os.remove(imagez) # Remove this line if you don't want to delete the picture after tweeting it
   except:
      print str(sys.exc_info())
      sys.exit()

This code will write the picture's name to the log file

ts = int(time.time())
st = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp (ts).strftime ('%H:%M:%S %d-%m-%Y')
fileName = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp (ts).strftime ('%Y%m%d')
text_file = open("/var/www/html/vaderthecat/" + fileName + ".log", "a")
text_file.write(st + " (updatetwitterpicture) " + imagez +"\n")
text_file.close()

Also you will need to add this command in somewhere to write the error in to the log if the tweet fails to be posted

text_file.write(" - " + str(sys.exc_info()) + "\n")

Running the above script will choose a random picture from the images folder and tweet it, there is an option to delete the picture after it's tweeted, and there is a check in place to exit gracefully if no pictures exist in the folder

The hashtag is fixed in this example, but you could randomize it, or include the picture's name as part of the caption

This is it for this part of the tutorial

Check out part four where we start greeting new followers...

For more project ideas check out my other projects here

© 2024 IWH Software (Ian Hill)