Back
May 12, 2010

Twitter API, OAuth and decorators

In my current project I had a task to use twitter API. Twitter uses OAuth for authentication, which is pretty dreary. To avoid fiddling with it all the time, I've moved authentication to decorator, now it looks like this:

@twitter_api
def tweet_hello(request, api):
    api.update_status('hello')
# ...

Decorator checks if key is available, and, if needed - initiates authentication. User is redirected to twitter, grants permission and is redirected back to site, to the same place where he left off. If key is available - nothing happens, just view is launched as usual.

It's convenient that there's no need for additional twitter settings in user profile.

tweepy is used as an API wrapper.

def twitter_api(view):
    def wrapped(request, args, *kwargs):
        callback_url = absolute_url(oauth_endpoint)
        auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, callback_url)

        if 'twitter_access_token' in request.session:
            key, secret =     request.session['twitter_access_token']
            auth.set_access_token(key, secret)
            return view(request, api=tweepy.API(auth), *args, **kwargs)

        request.session['twitter_action'] = request.path
        redirect_url = auth.get_authorization_url()
        request.session['twitter_request_token'] = (auth.request_token.key, auth.request_token.secret)
        return redirect(redirect_url)

    return wrapped


def oauth_endpoint(request):
    callback_url = absolute_url(oauth_endpoint)
    auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, callback_url)
    key, secret = request.session.pop('twitter_request_token')
    auth.set_request_token(key, secret)
    verifier = request.REQUEST.get('oauth_verifier')
    auth.get_access_token(verifier)
    request.session['twitter_access_token'] = (auth.access_token.key, auth.access_token.secret)
    return redirect(request.session.pop('twitter_action'))
  • of course, you need to wrap everything in try..except blocks and process errors accordingly
  • absolute_url should return full url, with http://
  • apart from request.path you can also store POST and GET.
  • path can be passed as an argument to callback_url

Subscribe for the news and updates

More thoughts
Feb 3, 2025Technology
Figma for Developers: What Dev Mode Offers and How to Use It

This article explores Figma’s Dev Mode, a tool that streamlines design-to-code translation by enabling precise inspection, automated code generation, and seamless integration with design systems.

Nov 27, 2024Technology
Stoicism At Work

This article explores how Stoic principles can be applied in the workplace to navigate stress, improve self-control, and focus on what truly matters, with practical examples from the author’s experience in software development.

Sep 8, 2023Technology
Smooth React virtual scroll with fixed rows/columns

One of our ongoing projects, Neptyne, introduces an Excel-like grid written in React. We used a library to apply virtual scroll to it, but we stumbled upon a problem with fixed rows and columns inside the grid. Here I would like to describe this problem, how it occurs, and how we handled it.

Aug 18, 2022Technology
5 Best Practices of RESTful API Design to Keep Your Users Happy

Dive into our guide to RESTful API best practices

Mar 2, 2017Technology
API versioning with django rest framework?

We often handling API server updates including backwards-incompatible changes when upgrading web applications. At the same time we update the client part, therefore, we did not experience any particular difficulties.

Oct 11, 2010Technology
Testing authentication in Django

In order to check if user is authentcated in test, you can run: