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
Mar 26, 2025Technology
Common Mistakes and Recommendations for Test Cases

The article highlights common test case mistakes, offers ways to fix them, and provides practical tips to improve and optimize test cases.

Mar 18, 2024Technology
From boring to exciting: turn learning to code into an adventure

Tired of boring programming courses where you're forced to read thick textbooks and write code that's never used? Need a platform that makes learning fun and exciting? Then you're in the right place!

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 3, 2017Technology
Flask vs Django. Which Is Better for Your Web App?

There are two most popular web frameworks in Python. There is the Django with lots of intelligent defaults and the Flask micro framework with complete freedom in the choice of modules. Let’s see, what django vs flask is in 2017.

Feb 28, 2017Technology
How to write an API in Django

There is such a term as Remote Procedure Call (RPC). In other words, by using this technology, programs can call functions on remote computers. There are many ways to implement RPC.

Feb 18, 2010Technology
Absolute urls in models

Everybody knows about permalink, but it's usually used only in get_absolute_url. I prefer to use it for all related model urls.class Event(models.Model):# ...@models.permalinkdef edit_url(self):return ('event_edit', (self.pk, ))And then in template:<a href="{{ event.edit_url }}">Редактировать событие</a>