Some old code where the script would monitor a newsstream called "Percről percre" and tweet any new items through a specific twitter account.

pptwit.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

$KCODE = 'u'
require 'jcode'

require 'rubygems'
require 'open-uri'
require 'hpricot'
require 'twitter'

DEBUG = true

class PPTwit
  def initialize url, user, password, interval = 30
    @url = url
    @user = user
    @interval = interval.to_i > 15 ? interval.to_i : 15  # in seconds
    @last = false
    if File.exists?(".#{@user}_last")
      @last = File.read(".#{@user}_last").strip
    end
    @twit = Twitter::Base.new(@user, password)
    puts "initialized: #{user} #{password} for #{url}" if DEBUG
  end

  def start_update
    puts "updating every #{@interval} seconds" if DEBUG
    loop do
      update
      sleep(@interval)
    end
  end

  def update
    puts "Updating..." if DEBUG
    doc = nil
    while doc.nil?
      begin
        doc = Hpricot(open(@url))
      rescue SocketError, SystemCallError => e
        puts "Error: #{e}"
        puts "Waiting 15 seconds and trying again"
        sleep(15)
      end
    end
    puts "url fetched" if DEBUG
    pp = doc % "div.pp_post:last"
    posting = false
    while pp
      if pp["class"] =~ /pp_post/
        title = (pp % "h3/:last").inner_text
        time  = (pp % "span.post_time").inner_text
        post  = (pp % "p/:first").inner_text

        if posting or not @last
          @last = "#{time} #{title}".strip

          if DEBUG
            puts "Posting:"
            puts "title: #{title}"
            puts "time:  #{time}"
            puts "post:  #{post.inspect}"
            puts
            puts "twits: #{post.length <= 140 ? post : split_to_twits(post).inspect}"
            puts
          end

          if post != "" and post.length <= 140
            @twit.update(post)
          elsif post != ""
            split_to_twits(post).each do |t|
              @twit.update(t)
              sleep(2)
            end
          end
       end
      posting = true if @last == "#{time} #{title}".strip
      end
      #if time =~ /19:45$/
      #  break
      #end
      pp = pp.previous_sibling
    end
    f = File.new(".#{@user}_last", "w")
    f.write(@last)
    f.close
  end

private
  def split_to_twits s
    twits = []
    words = s.split(" ")
    while words.join(" ").length > 140
      first = ""
      while first.length + words.first.length <= 136
        first << words.shift + " "
      end
      first << "..."
      twits << first
    end
    twits << words.join(" ")
  end
end

case $ARGV.size
when 3
  ppt = PPTwit.new $ARGV[0], $ARGV[1], $ARGV[2]
when 4
  ppt = PPTwit.new $ARGV[0], $ARGV[1], $ARGV[2], $ARGV[3]
else
  puts "USAGE: pptwit.rb url user password [update_interval]"
  exit 1
end

ppt.start_update

# vim: sw=2 ts=2 et