tweepy_to_json.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

from tweepy.models import Model, User
import urllib
import json
import copy


general_function_map = {
    'created_at': lambda dt: '%s' % dt.strftime('%x'),
    'user':       lambda u: unparse_user(u),
    'status':     lambda s: unparse_status(s),
}

def unparse_user(model):
    del_keys = ['_api']
    return _unparse_model(model, general_function_map, del_keys)

def unparse_status(model):
    del_keys = ['_api']
    return _unparse_model(model, general_function_map, del_keys)

def _unparse_model(model, function_map=None, del_keys=None):
    md = copy.copy(model.__dict__)
    fields = md.keys() ## won't return vars that start with __

    # convert fields as `function_map` specifies
    data_dict = dict()
    for field in fields:
        value = md[field]
        if field in del_keys:
            continue
        if field in function_map:
            fun = function_map[field]
            value = fun(value)
        data_dict[field] = value

    # return structure safe for json.dumps
    return data_dict


if __name__ == "__main__":
    user_url = 'http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show.json?screen_name=j2labs'
    json_data = urllib.urlopen(user_url).read()
    data = json.loads(json_data)

    # from twitter to tweepy
    u = User.parse(None, data)

    # from tweepy to json
    print json.dumps(unparse_user(u))