How to Update Twitter using PHP and Twitter API

Posted in Tutorials 735 days ago • Written by:

Abhishek

In the world of socializing on internet, Twitter is a big name and for developers its Twitter’s API. Its just Twitter’s unmatchable API that is failing all other micro-blogging services (like Tumblr) out there as it allows you to do almost everything. Once you become familiar with the Twitter API you can do innumerable number of things with it like updating your Twitter statuses remotely (Hint: We’ll be making this today!), searching the latest tweets for a keyword, and grab someone’s or your latest Tweets.

Today, we’ll be making a PHP Application that helps you update your Twitter status. So let’s get started without wasting anymore time!

The PHP script we’ll be making will consist of four files:

Files	Usage
Index.html	Includes the form which asks for your username, password & new status.
Post-to-Twitter.php	Posts the information entered on the form in Index.html to Twitter.
Style.css	For Index.html
Style-php.css	For Post-To-Twitter.php

MAKING THE FORM & STYLING IT WITH CSS

First, lets make a form in HTML with three input boxes for username, password & the new status message respectively and one command button which would submit the values to the PHP file “Post-to-Twitter.php”.

<html>
<head>
<title>Updating Twitter status using PHP</title>
<link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body>
<h1><span id="header">Updating Twitter Using PHP</span></h1></p>
<div id="quote1"><!--Start Quote1-->
<center><p> Learn to send updates to Twitter using its API + PHP! </p></center>
</div><!--End Quote1-->

<div id="form" align="center"><!--Start Form-->
<form name="form1" method="post" action="post-to-twitter.php">
<p><br />
<label>
Twitter Username:
<input name="t_user" type="text" id="t_user">
</label>
</p>

<p><br />
<label>Twitter Password:
<input name="t_pass" type="password" id="t_pass">
</label>
</p>
<p><br />
<label>Your status:</label>
</p>
<br />
<p>
<textarea name="t_update" cols="50" rows="5" id="t_update" ></textarea>
</p>
<p><br />
<label>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Post To Your Twitter Account!">
</label>
</p>
</form>
</div><!--End Form-->
<div id="quote2"><!--Start Quote2-->
<center><p>NOTE: We aren't storing your passwords in any way. If you want to try this then go ahead without hesitation!</p></center>
</div><!--End Quote2-->
</body>
</html>

You might have noticed that I have already attached the form action attribute to the post-to-twitter.php file. The CSS styling for this form goes below:


body {
background-color:#fff;
font-size:0.825em;
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

}

#quote1 {
margin-left:300px;
margin-right:300px;
border-style:solid;
border-width:2px;
border-color:#74DF00;
background-color:#EFEFD7;
line-height: 10px;
}

#quote2 {
margin-left:300px;
margin-right:300px;
border-style:solid;
border-width:2px;
border-color:#74DF00;
background-color:#EFEFD7;
line-height: 10px;
}

h1{
 padding:30px 0;
 text-align:center;
 text-shadow:0 1px 1px white;
 margin-bottom:30px;
 background-color:#f8f8f8;
 font-size:35px;
}

label{
text-shadow:0 1px 1px white;
font-size:18px;
}

This is what we have made till now:

SPICING THE FORM USING JQUERY

In the screenshot above, you may have seen that textboxes have a different style (when they are inactive) and this style can be brought using JQuery. The textboxes will have a different style or will be highlighted when they are active or when someone clicks on them. Just punch in the code below into the index.html file’s head and you are good to go!


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
 $('input[type="text"]').addClass("idleField");
 $('input[type="text"]').focus(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("idleField").addClass("focusField");
 if (this.value == this.defaultValue){
 this.value = '';
 }
 if(this.value != this.defaultValue){
 this.select();
 }
 });
 $('input[type="password"]').addClass("idleField");
 $('input[type="password"]').focus(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("idleField").addClass("focusField");
 if (this.value == this.defaultValue){
 this.value = '';
 }
 if(this.value != this.defaultValue){
 this.select();
 }
 });
 $('textarea').addClass("idleField");
 $('textarea').focus(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("idleField").addClass("focusField");
 if (this.value == this.defaultValue){
 this.value = '';
 }
 if(this.value != this.defaultValue){
 this.select();
 }
 });
 $('input[type="text"]').blur(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("focusField").addClass("idleField");
 if ($.trim(this.value == '')){
 this.value = (this.defaultValue ? this.defaultValue : '');
 }
 });
 $('input[type="password"]').blur(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("focusField").addClass("idleField");
 if ($.trim(this.value == '')){
 this.value = (this.defaultValue ? this.defaultValue : '');
 }
 });
 $('textarea').blur(function(){
 $(this).removeClass("focusField").addClass("idleField");
 if ($.trim(this.value == '')){
 this.value = (this.defaultValue ? this.defaultValue : '');
 }
 });
});

</script>

And add the following code to style.css:


.focusField {
 border:solid 2px #73A6FF;
 background:#EFF5FF;
 color:#000;
 }
.idleField {
 background:#EEE;
 color: #6F6F6F;
 border: solid 2px #DFDFDF;
 }

Now you’ll have styled text-boxes on the form. The .focusfield describes the style of an active text field & .idlefield describes the style of an inactive field.

ADDING THE CHARACTER COUNT & LIMIT

We all know that Twitter has a character limit of 140. Personally, I don’t like the limit but we have to accept the reality! So to make our PHP Application a little realistic we need to add the character count & then limit it to 140. This can easily be done using Javascript. To do so, add the following code snippet to the head of your Index (Index.html) file:


<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/
ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function()
{
$("#t_update").keyup(function()
{
var box=$(this).val();
var main = box.length *100;
var value= (main / 140);
var count= 140 - box.length;

if(box.length <= 140)
{
$('#count').html(count);
$('#bar').animate(
{
"width": value+'%',
}, 1);
}
else
{
alert('Character Limit Exceeded!');

;
}
return false;
});

});
</script>

You might have noticed in the code above that whenever the character limit of 140 is exceeded, you’ll see a message box saying “Character Limit Exceeded!”:

<pre>{
alert('Character Limit Exceeded!');

;
}

Now add the code below right after “Your Status” and before the status text-box on the HTML form in the Index.html file:


<div align="left" id="character-count"><!--Start Character Count-->
 <div id="count">140</div>
 <div id="barbox"><div id="bar"></div></div>
 </div><!--End Character Count-->

To avoid any confusions on the placement of the above code-snippet in the body of the index.html page, I have pasted the whole code inside the body tag below:


<body>
 <h1><span id="header">Updating Twitter Using PHP</span></h1>

<div id="quote1"><!--Start Quote1-->
<center><p> Learn to send updates to Twitter using its API + PHP! </p></center>
</div><!--End Quote1-->

<div id="form" align="center"><!--Start Form-->
<form name="form1" method="post" action="post-to-twitter.php">
 <p><br />
 <label>
 Twitter Username:
 <input name="t_user" type="text" id="t_user">
 </label>
 </p>

 <p><br />
 <label>Twitter Password:
 <input name="t_pass" type="password" id="t_pass">
 </label>
 </p>

 <p><br />
 <label>Your status:</label>
 </p>
 <p>
 <div align="left" id="character-count">
 <div id="count">140</div>
 <div id="barbox"><div id="bar"></div></div>
 </div>
 </p>
 <br />
 <p>
 <textarea name="t_update" cols="50" rows="5" id="t_update" ></textarea>

 </p>

 <p><br />
 <label>
 <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Post To Your Twitter Account!">
 </label>
 </p>
</form>
</div><!--End Form-->

<div id="quote2"><!--Start Quote2-->
<center><p>NOTE: We aren't storing your passwords in any way. If you want to try this then go ahead without hesitation!</p></center>
</div><!--End Quote2-->

</body>

Now we’ll style the character-count so add the following code to the style.css file:


#bar
{
background-color:#5fbbde;
width:0px;
height:16px;
}
#barbox
{
float:right;
height:16px;
background-color:#FFFFFF;
width:100px;
border:solid 2px #000;
margin-right:3px;
-webkit-border-radius:5px;-moz-border-radius:5px;
}
#count
{
float:right;
margin-right:8px;
font-family:'Georgia', Times New Roman, Times, serif;
font-size:16px;
font-weight:bold;
color:#666666
}
#contentbox
{
width:450px; height:50px;
border:solid 2px #006699;
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:14px;
}

#character-count {
margin-right:540px;
}

So now we have something like this:

BRINGING LIFE TO OUR APPLICATION WITH PHP

We have almost completed making the script now. All we have to do is to add some code to the post-to-twitter.php file and that’s it! Add the following code to the post-to-twitter.php file:


<?php
$username = ($_POST['t_user']);
$password = ($_POST['t_pass']);
$message = ($_POST['t_update']);

$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
curl_close($curl_handle);
if (empty($buffer)) {
 echo "<p align=\"center\" >".'Sorry, due to an error your Twitter status could not be updated! Please check your username/password!'."</p>";
} else {
 echo "<p align=\"center\">".'Your Twitter status has successfully been updated!'."</p>";
}
?>

You might have noticed the way we are passing the values entered in the text boxes to this PHP script. We had assigned id’s to the textboxes in our HTML script. We are now just importing the values entered in the text boxes with those id’s and assigning them a variable:


$username = ($_POST['t_user']);
 $password = ($_POST['t_pass']);
 $message = ($_POST['t_update']);

And then we just contact Twitter through the following code:


$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");

Now we firstly login the user with the username & password provided and then update the user’s status time-line with the status message entered in the Status box. Finally we display the confirmation message:

if (empty($buffer)) {
<pre> echo "<p align=\"center\" >".'Sorry, due to an error your Twitter status could not be updated! Please check your username/password!'."</p>";
} else {
 echo "<p align=\"center\">".'Your Twitter status has successfully been updated!'."</p>";
}

Now to style our output a little bit we just attach a stylesheet to the script and add a Back button to it. So here is our final code in the post-to-twitter.php file:


<html>
<head>
<title>Twitter-Post Confirmation</title>
<link href="css/style-php.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<?php
$username = ($_POST['t_user']);
$password = ($_POST['t_pass']);
$message = ($_POST['t_update']);

$url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml';
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, "$url");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 2);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "status=$message");
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "$username:$password");
$buffer = curl_exec($curl_handle);
curl_close($curl_handle);
if (empty($buffer)) {
 echo "<p align=\"center\" >".'Sorry, due to an error your Twitter status could not be updated! Please check your username/password!'."</p>";
} else {
 echo "<p align=\"center\">".'Your Twitter status has successfully been updated!'."</p>";
}
?>
<div id="history"><!--Start History-->
<a href="javascript:history.back()">Back to the previous page</a>
</div><!--End History-->
</body>
</html>

The stylesheet for this php file is named “style-php.css” and includes the following code:


@charset "utf-8";
/* CSS Document */

body {
 font-size:24px;
 vertical-align:middle;
 text-align:center;
 text-decoration:underline;
 margin-top: 150px;
 }

That’s it! We have successfully made our PHP script using which we can update our Twitter account’s remotely. There are numerous things you can do with the above application. You may use it onto your next project related to twitter or integrate this to your blog to directly post updates of new posts to Twitter without even using external services like Twitterfeed or FeedBurner or any other plugins!

If you have any questions, comments or concerns then feel free to leave a comment :)

<form

name=”form1″ method=”post” action=”post-to-twitter.php”>
<p><br />
<label>
Twitter Username:
<input name=”t_user” type=”text” id=”t_user”>
</label>
</p><p><br />
<label>Twitter Password:
<input name=”t_pass” type=”password” id=”t_pass”>
</label>
</p>

<p><br />
<label>Your status:</label>
</p>
<p>
<div align=”left” id=”character-count”>
<div id=”count”>140</div>
<div id=”barbox”><div id=”bar”></div></div>
</div>
</p>
<br />
<p>
<textarea name=”t_update” cols=”50″ rows=”5″ id=”t_update” ></textarea>

</p>

<div id=”quote2″><!–Start Quote2–>
<center><p>NOTE: We aren’t storing your passwords in any way. If you want to try this then go ahead without hesitation!</p></center>
</div><!–End Quote2–>

</body>
</html>

For Further Reading:

How To Grow as a Designer by Building Your Own Network

What is Pro Bono Work and Why Should You Embrace It

How to Overcome the Bad Moments of Your Career Like a Boss

First Steps in Creating a Web Design Business

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Article was created by Abhishek

Articles

Visit Abhishek's Website | Follow Abhishek On Twitter

Hello there! I am Abhishek Bhardwaj and I love to make programs in VB & JAVA. I also love Web-Designing & *Development. I write on my blog @ TutorialsWalk. You can follow me on Twitter!

43 Brilliant Comments - Join Discussion Now!

usingjquery
Posted 585 days ago
33

this method is now dead. and i was using something very similar on one of my sites now i have to rewrite it :(
Rahul
Posted 587 days ago
32

The code you have provided in the article is not working. It always gives me the 401 error. I think so twitter has blocked this method. Can you please help me how can I do the same thing i.e. auto tweets on twitter.

Hope you will reply me on that.
nasir
Posted 599 days ago
31

hi this code is not working any more now can anyone tell me what happend.
Jaiswar Vipin Kumar R
Posted 605 days ago
30

This this not working any more. Now you have to use new twitter api integrated wuth OAuth.

Thanks
Jaiswar Vipin Kumar R
Krishna
Posted 610 days ago
29

$twitter_api_url = “http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml”;
$twitter_data = “status=hi guys”;
$twitter_user = “username”;
$twitter_password = “password”;
$ch = curl_init($twitter_api_url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $twitter_data);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, “{$twitter_user}:{$twitter_password}”);
$twitter_data = curl_exec($ch);
$httpcode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);
//print_r($httpcode);
if ($httpcode != 200) {
echo “Don’t Panic! Something went wrong, and the tweet wasn’t posted correctly.”;
}
else
{
echo ‘Congrats it is succesfully posted’;
}
hi any one help me. I have used the above code for posting a message in twitter but it is not posting. It is returning $httpcode as 401. Please help me.
Kai
Posted 614 days ago
28

Hi
I really appreciate what you are doing for the community. I have a uestion : I just tested your code for using with twitter oauth. Workds great. But the only thing is that I always have to hit the button “Allow” on Twitters site? Is tehre a way to automate that?

Can I still use this code on this page to update twitter or won’t this work as of the September 2010 changes?
Thanks
Francesco Goffredo
Posted 630 days ago
27

Hi, thanks for tutorial.

1) I try the script here http://blog.francescogoffredo.com/twitter/
2) I try your demo.

on both sites can not post anything on twitter
can be a problem of my account?
Jack
Posted 664 days ago
25

I found a tutorial on how to login on twitter using OAuth but I don’t know how to integrate it in this program http://www.9lessons.info/2010/02/connect-twitter-api-with-oauth-using.html

Abhishek
Posted 638 days ago
26

This is your answer: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/tutorials/twitter-app-oauth-php/

pywen
Posted 670 days ago
24

hi i do have an error with the codes.
it has an error on this “$curl_handle = curl_init();”
and it says
Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() .
so what does this mean?
can anyone help me ? thanks a lot .

Regards, pywen
Abhishek
Posted 689 days ago
22

As of today, this method is still working ;) lol…..Twitter forgot to shut this down..:P
niret
Posted 694 days ago
21

it’s cool! thanks for share…
Babar Shahzad Chaudary
Posted 694 days ago
20

OAuth authentication postponed until August 16th 2010.

Abhishek
Posted 688 days ago
23

Wow, they are shutting it down on my Birthday!! lol ;)

Aming
Posted 703 days ago
17

it’s cool! thanks for share.. i don’t like waste the time to continued logins.

saravanan
Posted 699 days ago
18

how to replay for the user twit in twitter?

Abhishek
Posted 696 days ago
19

What? Can you please clarify your question?

Ilham Maulana
Posted 717 days ago
15

Nice… But I’ve got a question… It’s a example, “3 minutes ago via API”… How I can change the API word with my website name or application?

Abhishek Bhardwaj
Posted 714 days ago
16

That’s the way:
http://apiwiki.twitter.com/FAQ#HowdoIget%E2%80%9CfromMyApp%E2%80%9DappendedtoupdatessentfrommyAPIapplication

Ryan Fitton
Posted 725 days ago
13

Any word on using oAuth with this tutorial?
Great work though :) many thanks, Ryan.

Abhishek
Posted 725 days ago
14

Making one. Will be up on 1stwebdesigner soon! :)
.-= Abhishek´s last blog ..How to Update Twitter using PHP and Twitter API =-.

Al
Posted 726 days ago
11

Nice tut!
Would be great if you made a tutorial using OAuth too! :)

Abhishek
Posted 726 days ago
12

Making one now!
.-= Abhishek´s last blog ..How to Update Twitter using PHP and Twitter API =-.

Jordan Walker
Posted 731 days ago
10

That is a great utility to post to Twitter.
ohmohm
Posted 732 days ago
9

Are there some good examples for Oauth Twitter? Especially, easily to migrate from basic authentication.
Matt Harper
Posted 733 days ago
8

I had been trying to do this for the past several days but finally found a tutorial on the topic..thanks :)
Rahul
Posted 734 days ago
7

awesome article !! good tutorial :) will try it
Abhishek
Posted 735 days ago
6

I agree that Twitter will abandon this method but I will update this post with the “OAuth” usage soon ( will add that as a second method to this).
.-= Abhishek´s last blog ..How to make an elegant Favicon for your website in 2 minutes =-.
@Xarem
Posted 735 days ago
4

Hi

Like Matt Rogowski said:
On June 30, 2010 (5 weeks and 6 days from now), the @twitterapi team will be shutting off basic authentication on the Twitter API

Take a look: http://countdowntooauth.com/

So your script just run til 30 of june
santhos
Posted 735 days ago
3

I’ve just been exploring the Twitter API this morning. You wrote a very nice tutorial! And indeed, the Twitter API is very easy to use!!
.-= santhos ´s last blog ..Een professionele website laten maken. De handleiding. =-.
Matt Rogowski
Posted 735 days ago
2

Although it’s a very good tutorial, it’s largely irrelevant as Twitter is shutting down this method in favour of OAuth soon.
.-= Matt Rogowski´s last blog ..MyBB Support Team Lead =-.

Anon
Posted 735 days ago
5

only a couple of weeks left of the old authentication

Cosmin Negoita
Posted 735 days ago
1

A very good tutorial. I always wanted to make my own Twitter application because I could design it the way I want…Thank you!

1 2

MAKING THE FORM & STYLING IT WITH CSS

SPICING THE FORM USING JQUERY

ADDING THE CHARACTER COUNT & LIMIT

BRINGING LIFE TO OUR APPLICATION WITH PHP

For Further Reading:

Did you enjoy this article and found it useful?

Article was created by Abhishek

43 Brilliant Comments - Join Discussion Now!

Rahul

Krishna

Kai

Jack

Abhishek

pywen

Abhishek

Babar Shahzad Chaudary

Abhishek

saravanan

Ryan Fitton

Al

ohmohm

Anon

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