user_timeline limits

[Phil Gyford]

Hi,

I'm trying to archive all my twitters to a local database. I'm using
user_timeline but have hit a couple of problems.

First, if I set the 'count' parameter to the maximum of 200 and ask
for 'page' 2, then it doesn't fetch back tweets 201-400, but instead
fetches tweets 21-220. So 'count' does not affect the number of tweets
on a 'page'. So if you set the count to 200 and request several
incrementally numbered pages, then you're soon only getting 20 new
tweets each time, plus 180 you've had before. There doesn't seem much
point in being able to set the count higher than 20 unless you're only
fetching page 1. Is this normal?

Second, I can't fetch tweets further back than page 41 (with 20 tweets
per page), which is also as far back as I can go on the website. Is
there any way to fetch tweets older than this? If not, will there be?

I'd really like to make a local copy of my tweets but can't see how to
do so at the moment.

Many thanks,
Phil

[Alex Payne]

Looks like we've got some bugs here, as neither of these
behaviors/limitations are intentional. Please file issues at
http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/entry and we'll get them
taken care of.

--
Alex Payne - API Lead, Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/al3x

[TCI]

Alex,
How about the question for retrieving older tweets? Summize does have
some more history than Archive, but I guess we cannot count on these
retention times as you are growing quickly!
Rafa

On Oct 20, 11:50 am, "Alex Payne" <a...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Looks like we've got some bugs here, as neither of these

> behaviors/limitations are intentional.  Please file issues athttp://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/entryand we'll get them

[Phil Gyford]

Great, thanks Alex.

Done:
http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=128
http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=129

Let me know if I've missed any vital part of the explanation.

Cheers,
Phil

On Oct 20, 6:50 pm, "Alex Payne" <a...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Looks like we've got some bugs here, as neither of these

> behaviors/limitations are intentional.  Please file issues athttp://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/entryand we'll get them

[Alex Payne]

It's a bug that you can't get all of your own tweets, regardless of
how far back. You're right that the archive via the Search API is a
moving target, but it's our intention to provide user timelines to
their owners going as far back as necessary.

[atog]

Hello Alex,

Can the same thing be said for any other (public) user? I mean, should
it only be possible the get all of your own tweets or should you be
able to get all tweets from any public user?

Kind regards,

Koen.

On Oct 21, 5:50 pm, "Alex Payne" <a...@twitter.com> wrote:
> It's a bug that you can't get all of your own tweets, regardless of
> how far back.  You're right that the archive via the Search API is a
> moving target, but it's our intention to provide user timelines to
> their owners going as far back as necessary.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 3:00 AM, TCI <ticoconid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Alex,
> > How about the question for retrieving older tweets? Summize does have
> > some more history than Archive, but I guess we cannot count on these
> > retention times as you are growing quickly!
> > Rafa
>
> > On Oct 20, 11:50 am, "Alex Payne" <a...@twitter.com> wrote:
> >> Looks like we've got some bugs here, as neither of these

> >> behaviors/limitations are intentional.  Please file issues athttp://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/entryandwe'll get them

[Alex Payne]

The end result will likely be the same once the bug is fixed, but the
only guarantee we're making is that you'll be able to get all of your
own tweets.