Twitter Fetcher

browse_controller.rb

class BrowseController < ApplicationController

  # params - username, count 
  def tweets
    @tweets = Twitter.fetch_tweets(params[:username], params[:count])
    render json: @tweets
  end
  
end

twitter.rb

class Twitter

  # could have implemented better error messages
  def self.fetch_tweets(username, count = 10)
    return {status: "Error!", message: "Invalid username"} unless username
    
    begin
      api_url = "https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?include_entities=true&include_rts=true&screen_name=#{username}&#count=#{count}"
      tweet_objects = JSON.parse(open(api_url).read)
      tweet_objects.collect {|t| {id: t['id'], tweet_text: t['text']} }
    rescue
      return {status: "Error!", message: "Exception message"}
    end
  end
end