Best java twitter library? [closed]

Question

The twitter API site lists 3 java twitter libraries.

• Twitter4j
• java-twitter
• jtwitter

Do you know others? What are your experiences in support, ease of use, stability, community, etc.

Answer 1

I use Twitter4J and have yet to have a problem with it. I actually like it a lot.

The OAuth example they give on their website is the biggest nuisance -- it's not helpful. Here's my OAuthServlet code if you're interested (or anyone else). I know this question is rather old, so I'm putting it in here more for search results.

package com.example.oauth;

import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpSession;
import twitter4j.*;
import twitter4j.http.*;


@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class OAuthServlet extends HttpServlet {

    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp) throws IOException {

        HttpSession sess = req.getSession(true);
        RequestToken requestToken = (RequestToken) sess.getAttribute("requestToken");



        if (sess.getAttribute("twitter_user_id") != null) {
            resp.setContentType("text/plain");
            PrintWriter out = resp.getWriter();
            if (req.getRequestURI().indexOf("logout") > 3) {
                sess.removeAttribute("twitter_user_id");
                out.println("You're now logged out.");
            } else {
                out.println("You're already logged in!");
            }
        } else if (req.getRequestURI().indexOf("callback") > 3 && req.getParameter("oauth_token").length() > 0 && requestToken != null) {

            handleCallback(req, resp, sess);
            if (sess.getAttribute("oauth_previous") != null) {
                resp.sendRedirect((String) sess.getAttribute("oauth_previous"));
                sess.removeAttribute("oauth_previous");
            }

        } else {

            sendToTwitter(resp, sess);
            sess.setAttribute("oauth_previous", req.getHeader("Referer"));
        }

    }

    private void sendToTwitter(HttpServletResponse resp, HttpSession sess) throws IOException {

        RequestToken requestToken = (RequestToken) sess.getAttribute("requestToken");

        try {
            Twitter twitter = new TwitterCnx().registerOAuth().get();

            requestToken = twitter.getOAuthRequestToken();
            sess.setAttribute("requestToken", requestToken);

            resp.sendRedirect(requestToken.getAuthorizationURL());


        } catch (TwitterException e) {
            PrintWriter out = resp.getWriter();
            out.println(e.getStackTrace());
        }
    }

    private void handleCallback(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp, HttpSession sess) throws IOException {

        RequestToken requestToken = (RequestToken) sess.getAttribute("requestToken");
        sess.removeAttribute("requestToken");
        String secret = req.getParameter("oauth_token");

        resp.setContentType("text/plain");
        PrintWriter out = resp.getWriter();

        try {
            Twitter t = new TwitterCnx().registerOAuth().get();

            AccessToken accessToken = t.getOAuthAccessToken(requestToken.getToken(), secret);
            long id = (long) t.verifyCredentials().getId();

            storeAccessToken(id, accessToken,sess);
            sess.setAttribute("twitter_user_id", id);

            out.println("You're now logged in!");

        } catch (TwitterException e) {
            out.println("Something went wrong. Sorry about that. Please try again.");
        }

    }



    private void storeAccessToken(Long id, AccessToken at, HttpSession sess) {
        //you probably want to persist this somewhere other than in sessions.
        sess.setAttribute("secret", at.getTokenSecret() );
        sess.setAttribute("token", at.getToken());
        //also, don't forget to persist the user id alongside the token.
    }
}

I use the class TwitterCnx as a wrapper for twitter4j.Twitter. TwitterCnx defines my OAuth consumer stuff and returns a Twitter object. It's a final class with static methods so I don't produce more than one Twitter object per app instance.