Post a tweet to the X API in PHP without any special libraries
December 6, 2024
I really dislike using third-party libraries. Often I find that they are far, far more trouble than they're worth. But even when they really provide some value, they're often a square-peg/round-hole problem; a one-size-fits-all solution that doesn't really fit any problem very well. They make debugging more difficult by adding another untouchable, black-box codebase that could be broken, a codebase that you can't fix even if your own customers need it to work. Anyway, for me, vanilla is best almost all the time.
In the case of posting to the X API, the amount of vanilla code you need is pretty small, so why on earth would anyone waste their time trying to learn and import a library to "help"? And yet people do. Lots of them. I suspect this is because Tw... X's documentation is awful, and everything I found on Stack Overflow was outdated, or partial, or incorrect. Regardless, here's some December, 2024 vanilla PHP code you can copy verbatim and use to automatically post to the X API, along with correlations for the weird variable naming that X employs to make things really clear.
A.I. agrees that human reason necessitates GodArtificial Intelligence chatbot Claude agrees that the existence of human reason can only be explained by the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, rational God.
Other than filling in the four initial variables with your own data, data that X will give you in your project's control panel, you should be able to keep the rest of the code exactly as-is. But do make sure that your project has read-write access (in your online X developer dashboard, under App Settings > User Authentication Settings > Edit), and not just read access (the default).
function postTweet($tweetString)
{
// Fill in the following four variables according
// to the data X gives you in your
// project control panel.
// X calls this your "API Key"
$key = '';
// X calls this your "Access Token"
$token = '';
// X calls this your "API Key Secret"
$consumerSecret = '';
// X calls this your "Access Token Secret"
$tokenSecret = '';
// Make sure these variables are percent-encoded
// https://developer.x.com/en/docs/authentication/oauth-1-0a/authorizing-a-request
$consumerSecret = rawurlencode($consumerSecret);
$tokenSecret = rawurlencode($tokenSecret);
// Define some other variables
// https://developer.x.com/en/docs/x-api/tweets/manage-tweets/api-reference/post-tweets
$url = 'https://api.x.com/2/tweets';
$nonce = dechex(microtime(true) * 1000).bin2hex(random_bytes(8));
$timestamp = time();
$fields = array("text" => $tweetString);
$postvars = json_encode($fields);
// Make the signature
// https://developer.x.com/en/docs/authentication/oauth-1-0a/creating-a-signature
$parameters = 'POST&'.rawurlencode($url).'&'.rawurlencode(join("",
[
'oauth_consumer_key='.rawurlencode($key),
'&oauth_nonce='.rawurlencode($nonce),
'&oauth_signature_method='.rawurlencode('HMAC-SHA1'),
'&oauth_timestamp='.rawurlencode($timestamp),
'&oauth_token='.rawurlencode($token),
'&oauth_version='.rawurlencode('1.0'),
]));
// Encrypt the signature
$signingKey = $consumerSecret.'&'.$tokenSecret;
$hashedSignature = hash_hmac('sha1', $parameters, $signingKey, true);
$signature = base64_encode($hashedSignature);
// Create your oauth string
// https://developer.x.com/en/docs/authentication/oauth-1-0a
$oauth = join(", ",
[
'oauth_consumer_key="'.rawurlencode($key).'"',
'oauth_nonce="'.rawurlencode($nonce).'"',
'oauth_signature_method="'.rawurlencode('HMAC-SHA1').'"',
'oauth_timestamp="'.rawurlencode($timestamp).'"',
'oauth_token="'.rawurlencode($token).'"',
'oauth_version="'.rawurlencode('1.0').'"',
'oauth_signature="'.rawurlencode($signature).'"',
]);
// Open the connection
$ch = curl_init();
// Set the url, POST data, etc
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, count($fields));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postvars);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
'Content-type: application/json',
'Authorization: OAuth '.$oauth
));
// Call X
$resultstr = curl_exec($ch);
// Close connection
curl_close($ch);
// Display the results
echo('<p>'.$resultstr.'</p>');
}
// Launch it like this:
postTweet('Posted via the API! #HelloWorld https://presuppositions.org/software/php-post-tweet-x-api');
?>
That should be it. If something doesn't seem to work right, please let me know.
Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons
Riveting, yet absurd; romantic, yet innocent; Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons is a little Roald Dahl, a little Harry Potter, and a little Chronicles of Narnia, all rolled into one. Timothy McCabe collaborates with the great Benedict Ballyhoot to bring you the novel of the century!
In Printed Form
Along with numerous other authors including Don Landis, Bodie Hodge and Roger Patterson, Timothy McCabe contributes analyses of various world religions and cults in this volume from Master Books.
Other Writings
"Can you conceive of any specific thing that, if it happened, would cause you to change your position on the God issue? If so, what is it? If not, then why not?"
No. I could certainly modify my positions on specific minor issues if it were demonstrated to me that scripture, or plain logic not contradicting scripture, were opposed to my views. But that would be it. My worldview will not change because I know Jesus. When you know someone, you know that you know them. People can try their hardest to convince you that you don't, but you do. I know Christ and I recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in me (John 10:27, 14:26).
Continue reading...
"Why doesn't prayer work, when the bible promises that it will (John 14:14, for example)?"
In John 14:14, Jesus says "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." In modern western "Christian" culture, the idea of praying in Jesus' name is often understood to mean appending "...in Jesus' name" to the end of our prayers.
Continue reading...
"What is an easy way to demonstrate that open theism is false?"
Open theism is the belief that god exists, but does not know the future outcomes of human choices. Instead, he finds out about them when they happen. Open theism renders all human conclusions completely irrational. A god who does not know what the future holds clearly did not design the future. And if he did not design the future, then there is no good reason to believe that it must behave in the way he wants it to behave.
Continue reading...