13.5 What’s in a Tweet?
The Twitter API methods return JSON objects. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a text-based data-interchange format used to represent objects as collections of name–value pairs. It’s commonly used when invoking web services. JSON is both a human-readable and computer-readable format that makes data easy to send and receive across the Internet.
JSON objects are similar to Python dictionaries. Each JSON object contains a list of property names and values, in the following curly braced format:
{propertyName1: value1, propertyName2: value2}As in Python, JSON lists are comma-separated values in square brackets:
[value1, value2, value3]For your convenience, Tweepy handles the JSON for you behind the scenes, converting JSON to Python objects using classes defined in the Tweepy library.
Key Properties of a Tweet Object
A tweet (also called a status update) may contain a maximum of 280 characters, but the tweet objects returned by the Twitter APIs contain many metadata attributes that describe aspects of the tweet, such as:
when it was created,
who created it,
lists of the hashtags, urls, @-mentions and media (such as images and videos, which are specified via their URLs) included in the tweet,
and more.
The following table lists a few key attributes of a tweet object:
Sample Tweet JSON
Let’s look at sample JSON for the following tweet from the @nasa account:
@NoFear1075 Great question, Anthony! Throughout its seven-year mission,our Parker #SolarProbe spacecraft... https://t.co/xKd6ym8waT'
We added line numbers and reformatted some of the JSON due to wrapping. Note that some fields in Tweet JSON are not supported in every Twitter API method; such differences are explained in the online documentation for each method.
1 {'created_at': 'Wed Sep 05 18:19:34 +0000 2018',2 'id': 1037404890354606082,3 'id_str': '1037404890354606082',4 'text': '@NoFear1075 Great question, Anthony! Throughout its seven-yearmission, our Parker #SolarProbe spacecraft… https://t.co/xKd6ym8waT',5 'truncated': True,6 'entities': {'hashtags': [{'text': 'SolarProbe', 'indices': [84, 95]}],7 'symbols': [],8 'user_mentions': [{'screen_name': 'NoFear1075',9 'name': 'Anthony Perrone',10 'id': 284339791,11 'id_str': '284339791',12 'indices': [0, 11]}],13 'urls': [{'url': 'https://t.co/xKd6ym8waT',14 'expanded_url': 'https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1037404890354606082',15 'display_url': 'twitter.com/i/web/status/1…',16 'indices': [117, 140]}]},17 'source': '<a href="http://twitter.com" rel="nofollow">Twitter WebClient</a>',18 'in_reply_to_status_id': 1037390542424956928,19 'in_reply_to_status_id_str': '1037390542424956928',20 'in_reply_to_user_id': 284339791,21 'in_reply_to_user_id_str': '284339791',22 'in_reply_to_screen_name': 'NoFear1075',23 'user': {'id': 11348282,24 'id_str': '11348282',25 'name': 'NASA',26 'screen_name': 'NASA',27 'location': '',28 'description': 'Explore the universe and discover our home planet with@NASA. We usually post in EST (UTC-5)',29 'url': 'https://t.co/TcEE6NS8nD',30 'entities': {'url': {'urls': [{'url': 'https://t.co/TcEE6NS8nD',31 'expanded_url': 'http://www.nasa.gov',32 'display_url': 'nasa.gov',33 'indices': [0, 23]}]},34 'description': {'urls': []}},35 'protected': False,36 'followers_count': 29486081,37 'friends_count': 287,38 'listed_count': 91928,39 'created_at': 'Wed Dec 19 20:20:32 +0000 2007',40 'favourites_count': 3963,41 'time_zone': None,42 'geo_enabled': False,43 'verified': True,44 'statuses_count': 53147,45 'lang': 'en',46 'contributors_enabled': False,47 'is_translator': False,48 'is_translation_enabled': False,49 'profile_background_color': '000000',50 'profile_background_image_url': 'http://abs.twimg.com/images/themes/theme1/bg.png',51 'profile_background_image_url_https': 'https://abs.twimg.com/images/themes/theme1/bg.png',52 'profile_image_url': 'http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/188302352/nasalogo_twitter_normal.jpg',53 'profile_image_url_https': 'https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/188302352/nasalogo_twitter_normal.jpg',54 'profile_banner_url': 'https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/11348282/1535145490',55 'profile_link_color': '205BA7',56 'profile_sidebar_border_color': '000000',57 'profile_sidebar_fill_color': 'F3F2F2',58 'profile_text_color': '000000',59 'profile_use_background_image': True,60 'has_extended_profile': True,61 'default_profile': False,62 'default_profile_image': False,63 'following': True,64 'follow_request_sent': False,65 'notifications': False,66 'translator_type': 'regular'},67 'geo': None,68 'coordinates': None,69 'place': None,70 'contributors': None,71 'is_quote_status': False,72 'retweet_count': 7,73 'favorite_count': 19,74 'favorited': False,75 'retweeted': False,76 'possibly_sensitive': False,77 'lang': 'en'}
Twitter JSON Object Resources
For a complete, more readable list of the tweet object attributes, see:
https:/For additional details that were added when Twitter moved from a limit of 140 to 280 characters per tweet, see
https:/For a general overview of all the JSON objects that Twitter APIs return, and links to the specific object details, see
https:/
Self Check
(Fill-In) Tweet objects returned by the Twitter APIs contain many attributes that describe aspects of the tweet.
Answer: metadata.(True/False) JSON is both a human-readable and computer-readable format that makes objects easy to send and receive across the Internet.
Answer: True.