twits.rb

#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'

# Handle command line
account = ARGV.shift || 'jl_2'
num = ARGV.shift || 10

if num.to_i > 200
  puts "Can only fetch up to 200 tweets at a time."
  num = 200
end
puts "Ignoring extra command line arguments!" if ARGV.size>0

# Read user's "timeline" from twitter
url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/" +
      "#{account}.xml?count=#{num}"
tl = Nokogiri::XML(open(url))

# Get the dates and posts
dates = tl.xpath('/statuses/status/created_at/text()').map do |x|
  Time.parse(x.to_s)
end
posts = tl.xpath('/statuses/status/text/text()').map &:to_s

# make a list of [date, post]s
pairs = dates.zip posts

# Sort by post date
pairs = pairs.sort_by &:first

# Print the tweets
pairs.each do |date,txt|
  puts "%s - %s" % [date.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %p"), txt]
end