python - Twython search API with next_results

Question

I'm a bit confused about the search API. Let's suppose I query for "foobar", the following code:

from twython import Twython
api = Twython(...)
r = api.search(q="foobar")

In this way I have 15 statuses and a "next_results" in r["metadata"]. Is there any way to bounce back those metadata to the Twython API and have the following status updates as well, or shall I get the next until_id by hand from the "next_results" and perform a brand new query?

Answer 1

petrux, "next_results" is returned with metadata "max_id" and since_id which should be used to bounce back and loop through the timeline until we get desired number of tweets.

Here is the update on it from twitter on how to do it: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/working-with-timelines

Below is the sample code which might help.

tweets = []
MAX_ATTEMPTS = 10
COUNT_OF_TWEETS_TO_BE_FETCHED = 500 

for i in range(0,MAX_ATTEMPTS):

    if(COUNT_OF_TWEETS_TO_BE_FETCHED < len(tweets)):
        break # we got 500 tweets... !!

    #----------------------------------------------------------------#
    # STEP 1: Query Twitter
    # STEP 2: Save the returned tweets
    # STEP 3: Get the next max_id
    #----------------------------------------------------------------#

    # STEP 1: Query Twitter
    if(0 == i):
        # Query twitter for data. 
        results = api.search(q="foobar",count='100')
    else:
        # After the first call we should have max_id from result of previous call. Pass it in query.
        results = api.search(q="foobar",include_entities='true',max_id=next_max_id)

    # STEP 2: Save the returned tweets
    for result in results['statuses']:
        tweet_text = result['text']
        tweets.append(tweet_text)


    # STEP 3: Get the next max_id
    try:
        # Parse the data returned to get max_id to be passed in consequent call.
        next_results_url_params = results['search_metadata']['next_results']
        next_max_id = next_results_url_params.split('max_id=')[1].split('&')[0]
    except:
        # No more next pages
        break