Extended Tweets¶
This supplements Twitter’s Tweet updates documentation.
Introduction¶
On May 24, 2016, Twitter announced changes to the way that replies and URLs are handled and published plans around support for these changes in the Twitter API and initial technical documentation describing the updates to Tweet objects and API options.[1] On September 26, 2017, Twitter started testing 280 characters for certain languages,[2] and on November 7, 2017, announced that the character limit was being expanded for Tweets in languages where cramming was an issue.[3]
Standard API methods¶
Any tweepy.API
method that returns a Status object accepts a new
tweet_mode
parameter. Valid values for this parameter are compat
and
extended
, which give compatibility mode and extended mode, respectively.
The default mode (if no parameter is provided) is compatibility mode.
Compatibility mode¶
By default, using compatibility mode, the text
attribute of Status objects
returned by tweepy.API
methods is truncated to 140 characters, as needed.
When this truncation occurs, the truncated
attribute of the Status object
will be True
, and only entities that are fully contained within the
available 140 characters range will be included in the entities
attribute.
It will also be discernible that the text
attribute of the Status object
is truncated as it will be suffixed with an ellipsis character, a space, and a
shortened self-permalink URL to the Tweet.
Extended mode¶
When using extended mode, the text
attribute of Status objects returned by
tweepy.API
methods is replaced by a full_text
attribute, which
contains the entire untruncated text of the Tweet. The truncated
attribute
of the Status object will be False
, and the entities
attribute will
contain all entities. Additionally, the Status object will have a
display_text_range
attribute, an array of two Unicode code point indices,
identifying the inclusive start and exclusive end of the displayable content
of the Tweet.
Streaming¶
By default, the Status objects from streams may contain an extended_tweet
attribute representing the equivalent field in the raw data/payload for the
Tweet. This attribute/field will only exist for extended Tweets, containing a
dictionary of sub-fields. The full_text
sub-field/key of this dictionary
will contain the full, untruncated text of the Tweet, and the entities
sub-field/key will contain the full set of entities. If there are extended
entities, the extended_entities
sub-field/key will contain the full set of
those. Additionally, the display_text_range
sub-field/key will contain an
array of two Unicode code point indices, identifying the inclusive start and
exclusive end of the displayable content of the Tweet.
Handling Retweets¶
When using extended mode with a Retweet, the full_text
attribute of the
Status object may be truncated with an ellipsis character instead of
containing the full text of the Retweet. However, since the
retweeted_status
attribute (of a Status object that is a Retweet) is
itself a Status object, the full_text
attribute of the Retweeted Status
object can be used instead.
This also applies similarly to Status objects/payloads that are Retweets from
streams. The dictionary from the extended_tweet
attribute/field contains a
full_text
sub-field/key that may be truncated with an ellipsis character.
Instead, the extended_tweet
attribute/field of the Retweeted Status (from
the retweeted_status
attribute/field) can be used.
Examples¶
Given an existing tweepy.API
object and id
for a Tweet, the following
can be used to print the full text of the Tweet, or if it’s a Retweet, the
full text of the Retweeted Tweet:
status = api.get_status(id, tweet_mode="extended")
try:
print(status.retweeted_status.full_text)
except AttributeError: # Not a Retweet
print(status.full_text)
If status
is a Retweet, status.full_text
could be truncated.
This Status event handler for a StreamListener
prints the full text of the
Tweet, or if it’s a Retweet, the full text of the Retweeted Tweet:
def on_status(self, status):
if hasattr(status, "retweeted_status"): # Check if Retweet
try:
print(status.retweeted_status.extended_tweet["full_text"])
except AttributeError:
print(status.retweeted_status.text)
else:
try:
print(status.extended_tweet["full_text"])
except AttributeError:
print(status.text)
If status
is a Retweet, it will not have an extended_tweet
attribute,
and status.text
could be truncated.
Footnotes
[1] | https://twittercommunity.com/t/upcoming-changes-to-simplify-replies-and-links-in-tweets/67497 |
[2] | https://twittercommunity.com/t/testing-280-characters-for-certain-languages/94126 |
[3] | https://twittercommunity.com/t/updating-the-character-limit-and-the-twitter-text-library/96425 |