R/get-followers.R

In lingeringcode/tweetscoresmod: Tools for the Estimation of Ideology Scores with Twitter Data

#' @rdname getFollowers
#' @export
#'
#' @title
#' Returns the list of user IDs that correspond to a given user's follower
#'
#' @description
#' \code{getFollowers} connects to the REST API of Twitter and returns the
#' list of followers of a given user. Note that this function allows the
#' use of multiple OAuth token to make the process more efficient.
#'
#' @author
#' Pablo Barbera \email{P.Barbera@@lse.ac.uk}
#'
#' @param screen_name user name of the Twitter user for which their followers
#' will be downloaded
#'
#' @param oauth One of the following: either a list with details for an access token
#' (see example below), a folder where OAuth tokens are stored, or a csv file
#' with the format: consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret.
#'
#' @param cursor See \url{https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/followers/ids}
#'
#' @param user_id user id of the Twitter user for which their friends will be
#' downloaded
#'
#' @param verbose If \code{TRUE}, prints information about API calls on console
#'
#' @param sleep Number of seconds to sleep between API calls.
#'
#' @param file If not \code{NULL}, will store followers list in file instead of in
#' memory (useful for users with many followers in computer with low RAM memory).
#'
#' @examples \dontrun{
#' ## Creating OAuth token
#'  my_oauth <- list(consumer_key = "CONSUMER_KEY",
#'    consumer_secret = "CONSUMER_SECRET",
#'    access_token="ACCESS_TOKEN",
#'    access_token_secret = "ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET")
#' ## Download list of followers of user "p_barbera"
#'  followers <- getFollowers(screen_name="p_barbera", oauth=my_oauth)
#' }
#'

getFollowers <- function(screen_name=NULL, oauth, cursor=-1, user_id=NULL, verbose=TRUE, sleep=1, file=NULL){

  ## loading credentials
  my_oauth <- getOAuth(oauth, verbose=verbose)

  ## while rate limit is 0, open a new one
  limit <- getLimitFollowers(my_oauth)
  if (verbose) {message(limit, " API calls left")}
  while (limit==0){
    my_oauth <- getOAuth(oauth, verbose=verbose)
    Sys.sleep(sleep)
    # sleep for 15 minutes if limit rate is less than 100
    rate.limit <- getLimitRate(my_oauth)
    if (limit==0){
      print("Sleeping for 15 mins.")
      print(format(Sys.time()))
      Sys.sleep(900)
    }
    limit <- getLimitFollowers(my_oauth)
    if (verbose){message(limit, " API calls left")}
  }
  ## url to call
  url <- "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/followers/ids.json"
  ## empty list for followers
  if (is.null(file)) followers <- c()
  if (!is.null(file)){
    con <- file(file, "a")
    count <- 0
  }
  ## while there's more data to download...
  while ((cursor!=0)){
    ## making API call
    if (!is.null(screen_name)){
      params <- list(screen_name = screen_name, cursor = cursor, stringify_ids="true")
    }
    if (!is.null(user_id)){
      params <- list(user_id = user_id, cursor = cursor, stringify_ids="true")
    }
    url.data <- my_oauth$OAuthRequest(URL=url, params=params, method="GET",
                                      cainfo=system.file("CurlSSL", "cacert.pem", package = "RCurl"))
    Sys.sleep(sleep)
    ## one API call less
    limit <- limit - 1
    ## trying to parse JSON data
    json.data <- jsonlite::fromJSON(url.data)
    if (length(json.data$error)!=0){
      if(verbose){message(url.data)}
      stop("error! Last cursor: ", cursor)
    }
    ## adding new IDS
    if (is.null(file)) followers <- c(followers, as.character(json.data$ids))
    if (!is.null(file)){
      followers <- as.character(json.data$ids)
      writeLines(followers, con=con)
    }

    ## previous cursor
    prev_cursor <- json.data$previous_cursor_str
    ## next cursor
    cursor <- json.data$next_cursor_str
    ## giving info
    if (is.null(file)) message(length(followers), " followers. Next cursor: ", cursor)
    if (!is.null(file)){
      count <- count + length(followers)
      message(count, " followers. Next cursor: ", cursor)
    }

    ## changing oauth token if we hit the limit
    if (verbose){message(limit, " API calls left")}
    while (limit==0){
      my_oauth <- getOAuth(oauth, verbose=verbose)
      Sys.sleep(sleep)
      # sleep for 15 minutes if limit rate is 0
      rate.limit <- getLimitRate(my_oauth)
      if (limit==0){
        print("Sleeping for 15 mins.")
        print(format(Sys.time()))
        Sys.sleep(900)
      }
      limit <- getLimitFollowers(my_oauth)
      if (verbose){message(limit, " API calls left")}
    }
  }
  if (is.null(file)) return(followers)
  if (!is.null(file)) close(con)
}