threadFinder.php

<?php

class Threader
{
    private array $tweets, $roots;
    private string $user;

    public function handle(): void
    {
        echo "What is your twitter username? ";
        $handle = fopen ("php://stdin","r");
        $line = fgets($handle);
        $this->user = trim($line);
        echo "\n";
        echo "Thank you, continuing...\n";

        $json = file_get_contents('./tweet.js');

        $this->tweets = json_decode($json);

        echo "Analyzing...\n";
        foreach ($this->tweets as $tweet) {
            $tweet = $tweet->tweet;
            echo ".";
            if ($this->is_reply_to_self($tweet)) {
                $this->get_root($tweet);
            }
        }

        print_r($this->roots);

    }

    private function in_reply_to_id($tweet): bool|string
    {
        return property_exists($tweet, "in_reply_to_status_id") ? $tweet->in_reply_to_status_id : false;
    }

    private function get_root($tweet): void
    {
        $parent_id = $this->in_reply_to_id($tweet);
        $parent = $this->get_tweet_object_by_id($parent_id);

        if ($parent) {
            $this->get_root($parent);
        } else if ($this->is_not_reply($tweet)) {
            $this->roots[] = "https://twitter.com/" . $this->user . "/status/" . $tweet->id;
        }

    }

    private function get_tweet_object_by_id($id): bool|object
    {
        foreach ($this->tweets as $tweet) {
            if ($tweet->tweet->id === $id) {
                return $tweet->tweet;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }

    private function is_reply_to_self($tweet): bool
    {
        return property_exists($tweet, "in_reply_to_screen_name") && $tweet->in_reply_to_screen_name === $this->user;
    }

    private function is_not_reply($tweet): bool
    {
        return !property_exists($tweet, "in_reply_to_screen_name") && !property_exists($tweet, "in_reply_to_status_id") && !str_starts_with($tweet->full_text, "@");
    }
}

$t = new Threader();
$t->handle();

This is super hacky, use at your own risk, nothing guaranteed, etc. etc.

On your local machine, copy this to a file in a new directory, called e.g. threads.php. Put tweets.js in the same directory. Then, in that directory, run php ./threads.php on the command line. You should get an array of thread root URLs as output.

@tnorthcutt on twitter if you have questions