Get a Twitter users timeline up to 3,200 tweets written into a CSV, uses sixohsox Twitter modules retry facitlity (30 second sleep) if your rate limited

twitter_user_timeline.py

# dont keep this script in public_html!!!!
import twitter, sys,json,csv, time

def twitter_user_timeline(twitter_api, q):
    '''  get last tweet ID so we can paginate down from that 200 at a time to 3,200
    '''
    user_timeline = twitter_api.statuses.user_timeline(screen_name=q,count=1)
    print user_timeline[0]['id']
    ids = [user_timeline[0]['id']]
    statuses = []
    for i in range(0, 16): ## iterate through all tweets available with thsi API = 3,200
    ## tweet extract method with the last list item as the max_id
        user_timeline = twitter_api.statuses.user_timeline(screen_name=q,
        count=200, include_retweets=False, max_id=ids[-1]) # note a negative index means counting from end not the start of the array
        statuses += user_timeline
        # time.sleep(300) ## 5 minute rest between api calls, uncomment this if your being limited
        for tweet in user_timeline:
            ids.append(tweet['id']) ## append those tweet id's
            print tweet['id'] # I like to watch
    return statuses   

''' helper functions, clean data, unpack dictionaries '''
def getVal(val):
    clean = ""
    if isinstance(val, bool):
        return val
    if isinstance(val, int):
        return val
    if val:
        clean = val.encode('utf-8') 
    return clean

def getLng(val):
    if isinstance(val, dict):
        return val['coordinates'][0]

def getLat(val):
    if isinstance(val, dict):
        return val['coordinates'][1]

def getPlace(val):
    if isinstance(val, dict):
        return val['full_name'].encode('utf-8')

# == OAuth Authentication ==
# The consumer keys can be found on your application's Details
consumer_key=""
consumer_secret=""

# Create an access token under the the "Your access token" section
access_token=""
access_token_secret=""
auth = twitter.oauth.OAuth(access_token, 
  access_token_secret,
  consumer_key, 
  consumer_secret)
twitter_api = twitter.Twitter(auth=auth)
twitter_api.retry = True # should prevent rate limit errors but sleep anyway as this only sleeps for 30 seconds

# Sample usage
q = "David_Cameron"
results = twitter_user_timeline(twitter_api, q)
print len(results)
# Show one sample search result by slicing the list...
# print json.dumps(results[0], indent=1)
csvfile = open(q + '_timeline.csv', 'w')
csvwriter = csv.writer(csvfile)
csvwriter.writerow(['created_at',
                    'user-screen_name',
                    'text',
                    'coordinates lng',
                    'coordinates lat',
                    'place',
                    'user-location',
                    'user-geo_enabled',
                    'user-lang',
                    'user-time_zone',
                    'user-statuses_count',
                    'user-followers_count',
                    'user-created_at'])
for tweet in results:
    csvwriter.writerow([tweet['created_at'],
                            getVal(tweet['user']['screen_name']),
                            getVal(tweet['text']),
                            getLng(tweet['coordinates']),
                            getLat(tweet['coordinates']),
                            getPlace(tweet['place']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['location']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['geo_enabled']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['lang']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['time_zone']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['statuses_count']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['followers_count']),
                            getVal(tweet['user']['created_at'])
                            ])
print "done"