A simple class to retreive the latest tweets for a user.

twitter.php

<?php
define('_JEXEC', 1);

require_once __DIR__ . '/libraries/import.legacy.php';

/**
 * Simple class to retreive some tweets from Twitter and display using the Joomla! Platform CLI
 *
 * Note: This file must be placed at the root of your Joomla! Platform checkout
 *
 * @author Michael Babker
 */
class LatestTweets extends JApplicationCli
{
	public function doExecute()
	{
		// Explain what is going on
		$this->out('This application retreives the latest tweets from a user on Twitter.', true);

		// Get the username
		$this->out('What is the Twitter username?');
		$username = $this->in();

		// Get the number of tweets
		$this->out('How many tweets would you like?');
		$count = $this->in();

		// Make sure the user has some hits on their account
		$hits = $this->getLimit($username);
		if ($hits == 0)
		{
			$this->out('This user has no hits available at this time.');
			return;
		}

		// The URL to request the Twitter data from
		$req = 'http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?count=' . $count . '&screen_name=' . $username . '&include_rts=1';

		// Get the data
		$obj = $this->getJSON($req);

		// Process the data
		$twitter = $this->processItem($obj);

		// Output the tweets
		foreach ($twitter as $o)
		{
			$this->out($o->tweet->text . ' tweeted ' . $o->tweet->created, true);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * Function to fetch a JSON feed
	 *
	 * @param   string  $req  The URL of the feed to load
	 *
	 * @return  array  The fetched JSON query
	 */
	protected function getJSON($req)
	{
		// Create a new CURL resource
		$ch = curl_init($req);

		// Set options
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
		curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

		// Grab URL and pass it to the browser and store it as $json
		$json = curl_exec($ch);

		// Close CURL resource
		curl_close($ch);

		// Decode the fetched JSON
		$obj = json_decode($json, true);

		return $obj;
	}

	/**
	 * Function to get the rate limit of a Twitter user
	 *
	 * @param   string  $username  The Twitter username
	 *
	 * @return  string  The number of remaining hits on a user's rate limit
	 */
	protected function getLimit($username)
	{
		// Load the parameters
		$req = 'http://api.twitter.com/1/account/rate_limit_status.json?screen_name=' . $username;

		// Fetch the decoded JSON
		$obj = $this->getJSON($req);

		// Get the remaining hits count
		if (isset ($obj['remaining_hits']))
		{
		 	$hits = $obj['remaining_hits'];
		}
		else
		{
		 	$hits = '';
		}
		return $hits;
	}

	/**
	 * Function to process the Twitter feed into a formatted object
	 *
	 * @param   array  $obj  The data from Twitter
	 *
	 * @return  object  The output
	 */
	protected function processItem($obj)
	{
		// Initialize
		$twitter = array();
		$i = 0;

		// Load the relative time language strings
		JFactory::getLanguage()->load('jhtmldate', JPATH_PLATFORM . '/joomla/html', null, false, false);

		// Process the feed
		foreach ($obj as $o)
		{
			// Initialize a new object
			$twitter[$i]->tweet = new stdClass();

			// The data we're using
			$twitter[$i]->tweet->user = $o['user']['screen_name'];
			$twitter[$i]->tweet->text = $o['text'];

			// Set the dates for the relative time string
			$tweetTime = JFactory::getDate($o['created_at'], 'UTC');
			$twitter[$i]->tweet->created = JHtml::_('date.relative', $tweetTime, null, JFactory::getDate('now', 'UTC'));
			$i++;
		}

		return $twitter;
	}
}

JApplicationCli::getInstance('LatestTweets')->execute();