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
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 25, 2017Technology
How to Upload Files With Django

File upload works differently from simple form inputs, which can be somewhat troublesome for beginners. Here I'll show you how to handle uploads with ease.

Jan 22, 2017Technology
Django vs Rails Performance

This article is aimed for beginners, who are trying to choose between Ruby on Rails and Django. Let’s see which is fastest and why.

Apr 3, 2011Technology
Sprite cache invalidation

When we use css-sprites it's important to make browser cache them for longest period possible. On other hand, we need to refresh them when they are updated. This is especially visible when all icons are stored in single sprite. When it's outdated - entire site becomes ugly.

Mar 6, 2010Technology
Ajax form validation

There was a task to submit form with ajax, with server side validation of course. Obvious solution is to do validation and return json with erros. I didn't like idea of writing separate view for validation and then inserting errors in form html on client side. Especially since I already had a generic template for django form with errors display. In this article I'll describe how I solved the task.