Both Twitter and Identi.ca both offer a simple HTTP-based API for publishing and updating your status in 140 characters or less. Let’s look at Identi.ca’s API documentation for updating your status: + +
++ +Identi.ca REST API Method: statuses/update
+Updates the authenticating user’s status. Requires thestatusparameter specified below. Request must be aPOST. + ++
+- URL +
https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.format+- Formats +
xml,json,rss,atom+- HTTP Method(s) +
POST+- Requires Authentication +
- true +
- Parameters +
status. Required. The text of your status update. URL-encode as necessary. +
How does this work? To publish a new message on Identi.ca, you need to issue an HTTP POST request to http://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.format. (The format bit is not part of the URL; you replace it with the data format you want the server to return in response to your request. So if you want a response in XML, you would post the request to https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml.) The request needs to include a parameter called status, which contains the text of your status update. And the request needs to be authenticated.
+
+
Authenticated? Sure. To update your status on Identi.ca, you need to prove who you are. Identi.ca is not a wiki; only you can update your own status. Identi.ca uses HTTP Basic Authentication (a.k.a. RFC 2617) over SSL to provide secure but easy-to-use authentication. httplib2 supports both SSL and HTTP Basic Authentication, so this part is easy.
+
+
A POST request is different from a GET request, because it includes a payload. The payload is the data you want to send to the server. The once piece of data that this API method requires is status, and it should be URL-encoded. This is a very simple serialization format that takes a set of key-value pairs (i.e. a dictionary) and transforms it into a string.
+
+
+>>> from urllib.parse import urlencode ① +>>> data = {'status': 'Test update from Python 3'} ② +>>> urlencode(data) ③ +'status=test+update+from+python+3'+
-
+
- Python comes with a utility function to URL-encode a dictionary:
urllib.parse.urlencode(). + - This is the sort of dictionary that the Identi.ca API is looking for. It contains one key,
status, whose value is the text of a single status update. + - This is what the URL-encoded string looks like. This is the payload that will be sent “on the wire” to the Identi.ca API server in your HTTP
POSTrequest. +
+ +
>>> from urllib.parse import urlencode
+>>> import httplib2
+>>> httplib2.debuglevel = 1
>>> h = httplib2.Http('.cache')
>>> data = {'status': 'Test update from Python 3'}
->>> h.add_credentials('diveintomark', 'MY_SECRET_PASSWORD')
->>> resp, content = h.request('http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml', 'POST', urlencode(data))
->>> resp.status
-200
->>> from xml.etree import ElementTree as etree
->>> tree = etree.fromstring(content)
->>> print(etree.tostring(tree))
-<status>
- <created_at>Sat May 30 19:11:38 +0000 2009</created_at>
- <id>1973974228</id>
- <text>Test update from Python 3</text>
- <source>web</source>
- <truncated>false</truncated>
- <in_reply_to_status_id />
- <in_reply_to_user_id />
- <favorited>false</favorited>
- <in_reply_to_screen_name />
- <user>
- <id>8294212</id>
- <name>Mark Pilgrim</name>
- <screen_name>diveintomark</screen_name>
- <location>Apex, NC</location>
- <description>Like a fine spice</description>
- <profile_image_url>http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/72859681/beau_normal.jpg</profile_image_url>
+>>> h.add_credentials('diveintomark', 'MY_SECRET_PASSWORD') ①
+>>> resp, content = h.request('https://identi.ca/api/statuses/update.xml', ②
+... 'POST', ③
+... urlencode(data), ④
+... headers={'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'}) ⑤
+-
+
- This is how
httplib2handles authentication. Store your username and password with theadd_credentials()method. Whenhttplib2tries to issue the request, the server will respond with a401 Authentication Required, and it will list which authentication methods it supports.httplib2will automatically format the appropriate FIXME + - +
- +
- +
- +
+# continued from the previous example +send: b'POST /api/statuses/update.xml HTTP/1.1 +Host: identi.ca +Accept-Encoding: identity +Content-Length: 32 +content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded +user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $ + +status=Test+update+from+Python+3' +reply: 'HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized' +send: b'POST /api/statuses/update.xml HTTP/1.1 +Host: identi.ca +Accept-Encoding: identity +Content-Length: 32 +content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded +authorization: Basic SECRET_HASH_CONSTRUCTED_BY_HTTPLIB2 +user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $ + +status=Test+update+from+Python+3' +reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'+
-
+
- FIXME +
+# continued from the previous example
+>>> print(content.decode('utf-8'))
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<status>
+ <text>Test update from Python 3</text>
+ <truncated>false</truncated>
+ <created_at>Wed Jun 10 03:53:46 +0000 2009</created_at>
+ <in_reply_to_status_id></in_reply_to_status_id>
+ <source>api</source>
+ <id>5131472</id>
+ <in_reply_to_user_id></in_reply_to_user_id>
+ <in_reply_to_screen_name></in_reply_to_screen_name>
+ <favorited>false</favorited>
+ <user>
+ <id>3212</id>
+ <name>Mark Pilgrim</name>
+ <screen_name>diveintomark</screen_name>
+ <location>27502, US</location>
+ <description>tech writer, husband, father</description>
+ <profile_image_url>http://avatar.identi.ca/3212-48-20081216000626.png</profile_image_url>
+ <url>http://diveintomark.org/</url>
+ <protected>false</protected>
+ <followers_count>329</followers_count>
+ <profile_background_color></profile_background_color>
+ <profile_text_color></profile_text_color>
+ <profile_link_color></profile_link_color>
+ <profile_sidebar_fill_color></profile_sidebar_fill_color>
+ <profile_sidebar_border_color></profile_sidebar_border_color>
+ <friends_count>2</friends_count>
+ <created_at>Wed Jul 02 22:03:58 +0000 2008</created_at>
+ <favourites_count>30768</favourites_count>
+ <utc_offset>0</utc_offset>
+ <time_zone>UTC</time_zone>
+ <profile_background_image_url></profile_background_image_url>
+ <profile_background_tile>false</profile_background_tile>
+ <statuses_count>122</statuses_count>
+ <following>false</following>
+ <notifications>false</notifications>
+</user>
</status>
+-
+
- FIXME +
FIXME +
+
⁂
Beyond HTTP POST
@@ -699,11 +778,32 @@ user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $'
# continued from the previous example
->>> tree.findtext('id')
-'1973974228'
->>> resp, delete_content = h.request('http://twitter.com/statuses/destroy/{0}.xml'.format(tree.findtext('id')), 'DELETE')
+>>> from xml.etree import ElementTree as etree
+>>> tree = etree.fromstring(content)
+>>> status_id = tree.findtext('id')
+>>> status_id
+'5131472'
+>>> resp, deleted_content = h.request('https://identi.ca/api/statuses/destroy/{0}.xml'.format(status_id), 'DELETE')
+send: b'DELETE /api/statuses/destroy/5131472.xml HTTP/1.1
+Host: identi.ca
+Accept-Encoding: identity
+user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $
+
+'
+reply: 'HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized'
+send: b'DELETE /api/statuses/destroy/5131472.xml HTTP/1.1
+Host: identi.ca
+Accept-Encoding: identity
+authorization: Basic SECRET_HASH_CONSTRUCTED_BY_HTTPLIB2
+user-agent: Python-httplib2/$Rev: 259 $
+
+'
+reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK'
>>> resp.status
200
+-
+
- FIXME +
⁂ diff --git a/i/identica-deleted.png b/i/identica-deleted.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e913aa Binary files /dev/null and b/i/identica-deleted.png differ diff --git a/i/identica-screenshot.png b/i/identica-screenshot.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a124a11 Binary files /dev/null and b/i/identica-screenshot.png differ diff --git a/publish b/publish index cd9593c..e9c2a44 100755 --- a/publish +++ b/publish @@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ rm -rf build mkdir build cp robots.txt *.css build/ cp -R j build/ +cp -R i build/ rm -f examples/*.pyc cp -R examples build/ @@ -68,10 +69,10 @@ sed -i -e "s|=http:|=|g" build/*.html sed -i -e "s|href=index.html|href=/|g" build/*.html # set file permissions (hg resets these, don't know why) -chmod 755 build/j -chmod 644 build/*.html build/*.css build/examples/*.py build/examples/*.txt build/*.txt build/j/*.js build/j/.htaccess +chmod 755 build/j build/i +chmod 644 build/*.html build/*.css build/examples/*.py build/examples/*.txt build/*.txt build/j/*.js build/j/.htaccess build/i/* # ship it! echo "publishing" rsync -essh -avzP build/j/$revision.js build/j/html5.js build/j/.htaccess diveintomark.org:~/web/diveintopython3.org/j/ -rsync -essh -avzP build/*.html build/examples build/*.txt diveintomark.org:~/web/diveintopython3.org/ +rsync -essh -avzP build/*.html build/examples build/*.txt build/i diveintomark.org:~/web/diveintopython3.org/