occupytweets

#Created by Hanna, updated on 3/22/12 by Suzanne
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#Input: query, q
#output: a file, aFile
#Description: Given q, extract relevant tweets
#Comments: Very easy to use.  However, low recall (restriction of the service used)
#OSX users will need to install gems and json
#Windows users should use the comprehensive ruby installer
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
require "rubygems"
require "json"
require "open-uri"

output = ""

#use topsy web service to extract tweets
#q=query
topsy = [
                "http://otter.topsy.com/search.json?q=nypd+occupy&perpage=100&page=5&type=tweet",
                ]
puts topsy

#aFile = output file of tweets
aFile = File.new("nypd_occupy.txt", "a+")

topsy.each do |topsy|


        trackbacks = JSON.parse(open(topsy).read)

                trackbacks["response"]["list"].each do |tweet|

#attribute extraction and comma separation
                        output +=   tweet["firstpost_date"].to_s + "\t" +
                                                tweet["content"] + "\t" +
                                                tweet["trackback_total"].to_s + "\t" +
                                                tweet["trackback_author_nick"] + "\t" +
                                                tweet["trackback_author_name"] + "\t" +
                                                tweet["topsy_trackback_url"] + "\n"

                        puts output     #to show that it is working

                end #end trackback loop

aFile.syswrite(output)

end  #end topsy loop