fetch_tweets.py

from calendar import timegm
from datetime import datetime
from rfc822 import parsedate
from urllib import urlencode
from urllib2 import urlopen
from django import template
from django.utils import simplejson

register = template.Library()

class TwitterNode(template.Node):
    def __init__(self, user, variable_name):
        self.user = user
        self.variable_name = variable_name
        
    def render(self, context):
        parameters = {'id': self.user}
        encoded_parameters = urlencode(parameters)
        url = 'http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.json?%s' % encoded_parameters
        response = urlopen(url)
        tweets = simplejson.load(response)
        
        for tweet in tweets:
            timestamp = timegm(parsedate(tweet['created_at']))
            tweet['python_date'] = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)
        
        context[self.variable_name] = tweets
        return ''
        
def fetch_tweets(parser, token):
    """
    In templates, call like the following:
    {% fetch_tweets from your_twitter_username as tweets %}
    """
    
    bits = token.contents.split()
    
    if len(bits) != 5:
        raise TemplateSyntaxError("fetch_tweets takes exactly four arguments.")
        
    if bits[1] != 'from':
        raise TemplateSyntaxError("The second argument to fetch_tweets must be 'from'.")
        
    if bits[3] != 'as':
        raise TemplateSyntaxError("The fourth argument to fetch_tweets must be 'as'.")
        
    user = bits[2]
    variable_name = bits[4]
        
    return TwitterNode(user, variable_name)
    
register.tag(fetch_tweets)