How to Import Data from Twitter

This article describes how to import data from Twitter into Displayr using R. You can see more examples of what the R functions can do if you google the twitteR R package. It is recommended to test your modified R code from below first in a custom calculation on the page (Calculation > Custom Code) in case it requires troubleshooting, see How to Troubleshoot R Code in Displayr.

Requirements

• A Displayr document.
• A Twitter Developer account with the tokens and keys below from your Developer Platform via Apps > Details > Keys and tokens 
  • a valid consumer API key and consumer API secret
  • access token and access secret 

Method -  Search Twitter

The following steps create an R Data Set with, the last 100 tweets with a mention of 'Tesla'.

1. In the Data Sets pane, click the Plus (+) button at the top and click on R.

2. Enter a name for the data set under Name.

3. Paste the below R code in the editor box and modify to your example:

#load libraries with R functions needed
library("twitteR")
library("ROAuth")

# Provide Authentication information
consumer_key = 'your_consumer_key'
consumer_secret = 'your_consumer_secret'
access_token = 'your_access_token'
access_secret = 'your_access_secret'

#authenticate the connection
setup_twitter_oauth(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_secret)

#Add in Query information
search.string = 'Tesla'
no.of.tweets = 100

#search twitter with query information
tweets <- searchTwitter(search.string, n=no.of.tweets, lang="en")

#return search results as a table of data (data frame)
search.df <- twListToDF(tweets)

4. Click OK.

Method -  User Timeline

In this example, we are pulling the last 1000 tweets from the Displayr Twitter timeline.

1. In the Data Sets pane, click the Plus (+) button at the top and click on R.

2. Enter a name for the data set under Name.

3. Paste the below R code in the editor box and modify to your example:

#load libraries with R functions needed
library("twitteR")
library("ROAuth")

# Provide Authentication information
consumer_key = 'your_consumer_key'
consumer_secret = 'your_consumer_secret'
access_token = 'your_access_token'
access_secret = 'your_access_secret'

#authenticate the connection
setup_twitter_oauth(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_secret)

# Query info
twitter.account = "displayrr"
number.results = 1000
tweets.user = userTimeline(twitter.account, 
                           n=number.results, 
                           maxID=NULL, 
                           sinceID=NULL, 
                           includeRts=TRUE)

#turn the query results into a table of data (data frame)
tweets.user = twListToDF(tweets.user)

3. Click OK.

Notes

If you wish to make this call take place daily, you can add the below lines to the top of your R code, see How to Automatically Update Calculations, Variables and Data Sets Using R for more detail:

library(flipTime)
UpdateEvery(1, "days", options = "wakeup")

Next

How to Create a Word Cloud

How to Show Sentiment in Word Clouds

How to Semi-Automatically Code Text Data

How to Map Text Analysis

Creating Summary Tables and Crosstabs