Web Development TutorialsWritten By Peter Kelly

Over the past few days I have been messing around with the basic Twitter API which can be found at (http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-API-Documentation). So I have decided that to create a function on how to retrieve the latest status from any account.

In the function we will use SimpleXML and file_get_contents functions which are integrated into PHP.
Below is an example XML that is retrieved from the Twitter API.

Tue Apr 07 22:52:51 +0000 2009
1472669360
At least I can get your humor through tweets. RT @abdur: I don't mean this in a bad way, but genetically speaking your a cul-de-sac.
TweetDeck
false


false


1401881
 Doug Williams
 dougw
 San Francisco, CA
 Twitter API Support. Internet, greed, users, dougw and opportunities are my passions.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_images/59648642/avatar_normal.png
 http://www.igudo.com
false
 1027
9ae4e8
000000
0000ff
e0ff92
87bc44
 293
 Sun Mar 18 06:42:26 +0000 2007
 0
 -18000
 Eastern Time (US & Canada)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_background_images/2752608/twitter_bg_grass.jpg
false
 3390
 false
 false
 true

So here’s the Twitter API Function.

function view_twitter_status($username)
{
    $twitter_url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/".$username.".xml?count=1"; // Twitter API Url
    $buffer = file_get_contents($twitter_url); // Using the Twitter API Url retrieve the contents.
    // Create a new SimpleXMLElement using the contents retrieved from Twitter.
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($buffer);
    // So now we need to get to obtaining the information we want.
    $status_item = $xml->status;
    $status = $status_item->text;
    // Return $status which has the current status in it.
    return $status;
}

So now to use it below is an example.

This is only a basics and there is lots of room to improve but if you have any further questions or like this tutorial please leave a comment thanks.