A simple SilverStripe PHP class for loading a stream of tweets from a XML file.

Tweet.php

<?php

/**
 * Loads tweets onto a SilverStripe object through a XML file rather than the
 * web API.
 *
 * Usage: 
 *
 * 	// PHP
 *	function Tweets() {
 * 		return Tweet::get('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/willrossi.rss', 10);
 * 	}	
 *
 *	// SS
 *	<% if $Tweets %>
 *		<% loop $Tweets %>
 *			$Description on $PubDate.Nice
 *		<% end_loop %>
 *	<% end_if %>
 *
 * @license http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING
 * @author Will Rossiter (will@fullscreen.io)
 */

class Tweet extends ViewableData {

	protected $description;
	protected $pubDate;

	public function __construct($description, $pubDate) {
		$this->description = $description;
		$this->pubDate = $pubDate;
	}

	/**
	 * Parses hash tags, @usernames, and URLs in a tweet description into 
	 * HTML links.
	 *
	 * @return string
	 */
	public function getDescription() {
		$desc = $this->description;

		$desc = substr(strstr($desc, ': '), 2, strlen($desc)); // remove preceding username
		$desc = preg_replace("/(http:\/\/)(.*?)\/([\w\.\/\&\=\?\-\,\:\;\#\_\~\%\+]*)/", "<a href=\"\\0\">\\0</a>", $desc); // URLs into links
		$desc = preg_replace('/(^|\s)#(\w+)/', '\1<a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23\2">#\2</a>', $desc); // Hash tags to links

		return DBField::create_field('HTMLText', $desc);
	}

	/**
	 * @return SS_Datetime
	 */
	public function getPubDate() {
		return DBField::create_field('SSDatetime', $this->pubDate);
	}

	/**
	 * Get some tweets from static file with a limit.
	 * 
	 * @param int $limit Limit number of tweets
	 * @return ArrayList
	 */
	public static function get($path, $limit) {
		$cache = SS_Cache::factory('tweets');

		if (!($output = unserialize($cache->load('tweets')))) {
			$output = new ArrayList();
			$context = stream_context_create(array(
				'http' => array(
					'method' => 'GET',
					'timeout' => 5
				)
			));

			$tweets = @file_get_contents($path, '', $context);
			if(!$tweets) return false;
			
			$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($tweets);
			$total = 0;

			foreach($xml->xpath('channel/item') as $item) {
				$output->push(new Tweet(
					(string) $item->description,
					(string) $item->pubDate
				));

				$total++;

				if($total == $limit) break;
			}


			$cache->save(serialize($output));
		}

		return $output;
	}
}