Question

I am making a wep app using the Twitter API 1.1 and have successfully created functions that pull-in a specified users profile image, their actual name and their latest tweet. All using OAuth to authenticate the requests.

My question is this – All 3 functions created expect a twitter user name to be defined. At the moment I have to duplicate my code over and over for each twitter user name I put in. Surely there is a better way of doing it? As at the moment my code doesn’t look good at all. If anyone could help I would greatly appreciate it. I’m pretty new to PHP so am stuck on what to do.

Please see my code below:
The functions:

function getTweets($user, $tmhOAuth){
$usertweets = array();

$code = $tmhOAuth->request('GET', $tmhOAuth->url('1.1/statuses/user_timeline'), array(
  'include_entities'    => '1',
  'include_rts'         => '1',
  'screen_name'         => $user,
  'count'               => 1,
  'exclude_replies'     => 'true',
  'contributor_details' => 'true'
));


if ($code == 200) {
  $timeline = json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response'], true); 
  foreach ($timeline as $tweet) :
    $entified_tweet = tmhUtilities::entify_with_options($tweet);
    $is_retweet = isset($tweet['retweeted_status']);

    $diff = time() - strtotime($tweet['created_at']);
    if ($diff < 60*60)
      $created_at = floor($diff/60) . ' minutes ago';
    elseif ($diff < 60*60*24)
      $created_at = floor($diff/(60*60)) . ' hours ago';
    else
      $created_at = date('d M', strtotime($tweet['created_at']));

    $permalink  = str_replace(
      array(
        '%screen_name%',
        '%id%',
        '%created_at%'
      ),
      array(
        $tweet['user']['screen_name'],
        $tweet['id_str'],
        $created_at,
      ),
      '<a href="https://twitter.com/%screen_name%/%id%">%created_at%</a>'
    );
     $tweet['created_at'] = $created_at;
     $usertweets[] = $tweet;
   endforeach;
   } else {
       tmhUtilities::pr($tmhOAuth->response);
}
    return $usertweets;
}

function getImage($screen_name,$tmhOAuth,$size = ''){
$url = $tmhOAuth->request('GET', $tmhOAuth->url('1.1/users/show'), array(
  'screen_name' => $screen_name,
));

$results = json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response'], true);

//Get the user's profile image
$profileImg = ($results['profile_image_url']);
return str_replace('_normal', $size, $profileImg);
}

function getName($screen_name,$tmhOAuth){
$url = $tmhOAuth->request('GET', $tmhOAuth->url('1.1/users/show'), array(
  'screen_name' => $screen_name,
));

$results = json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response'], true);

//Get the user's name
$name = ($results['name']);
return $name;
}

How the functions are implemented:

$name2 = getName("JoeyEssex_",$tmhOAuth);
$user2 = getTweets("JoeyEssex_",$tmhOAuth);
$image2 = getImage("JoeyEssex_",$tmhOAuth);

$name3 = getName("piersmorgan",$tmhOAuth);
$user3 = getTweets("piersmorgan",$tmhOAuth);
$image3 = getImage("piersmorgan",$tmhOAuth);

$name4 = getName("BinkyFelstead",$tmhOAuth);
$user4 = getTweets("BinkyFelstead",$tmhOAuth);
$image4 = getImage("BinkyFelstead",$tmhOAuth);

//Display the profile images of specified users

echo '<img src="' . $image2 . '" width="240px" height="240px" />';
echo '<img src="' . $image3 . '" width="240px" height="240px" />';
echo '<img src="' . $image4 . '" width="240px" height="240px" />';

//Display user's name
echo '<p>Latest tweet from <b>' . $name1 . '</b>:<br />';
//Display their tweets
foreach($user1 as $tweet){ 
echo $tweet['text'] . '<br />';
echo "Sent: <b>" . $tweet['created_at'] . "</b></p>";
}

echo '<b>' . $name2 . '</b>&nbsp;';
foreach($user2 as $tweet){
echo $tweet['text'];
echo "&nbsp;" . $tweet['created_at'] . "<br />";
}

echo '<b>' . $name3 . '</b>&nbsp;';
foreach($user3 as $tweet){
echo $tweet['text'];
echo "&nbsp;" . $tweet['created_at'] . "<br />";
}

echo '<b>' . $name4 . '</b>&nbsp;';
foreach($user4 as $tweet){
echo $tweet['text'];
echo "&nbsp;" . $tweet['created_at'] . "<br />";
}

You see the horrible repetition? There’s got to be a better way!

Answer 1

The only part that differs in the duplicated code is actually the name of the person tweeting. So create a list of all the tweeters names and iterate over it. Change the code inside the foreach loop to reflect the new input and processing:

$tweeters = array('JoeyEssex_', 'piersmorgan', 'BinkyFelstead');

foreach ($tweeters as $tweeter)
{
    $tweeter_name   = getName($tweeter, $tmhOAuth);
    $tweeter_tweets = getTweets($tweeter, $tmhOAuth);
    $tweeter_image  = getImage($tweeter, $tmhOAuth);    

    // Display the profile images of user
    echo '<img src="' . $tweeter_image . '" width="240px" height="240px" />';

    // Display user's name
    echo '<p>Latest tweet from <b>' . tweeter_name . '</b>:<br />';

    // Display user's tweets
    foreach ($tweeter_tweets as $tweet)
    {
        echo $tweet['text'] . '<br />';
        echo "Sent: <b>" . $tweet['created_at'] . "</b></p>";
    }
}

Putting the repetition into a loop is a common way to express code-duplication in the meaning to do the same over and over again.

Additionally you can even start to wrap the functionality into a Tweeter class:

class Tweeter {

    private $name;
    private $tmhOAuth;

    public function __construct($name, $tmhOAuth) {
        $this->name     = $name;
        $this->tmhOAuth = $tmhOAuth;
    }

    public function getName() {
        return getName($this->name, $this->tmhOAuth);
    }

    public function getTweets() {
        return getTweets($this->name, $this->tmhOAuth);
    }

    public function getImage() {
        return getImage($this->name, $this->tmhOAuth);
    }
}

This is quickly written, naturally you can even move the code from the existing get... functions into the class methods, but I kept it step-by-step doing a quick first change without removing existing code.

The usage then is fairly straight forward:

$tweeters = array('JoeyEssex_', 'piersmorgan', 'BinkyFelstead');

// Create all Tweeter objects
foreach ($tweeters as $i => $tweeter)
{
    $tweeters[$i] = new Tweeter($tweeter, $tmhOAuth);
}

// Display all Tweeters

foreach ($tweeters as $tweeter)
{
    echo '<img src="' . $tweeter->getImage() . '" width="240px" height="240px" />';

    echo '<p>Latest tweet from <b>' . $tweeter->getName() . '</b>:<br />';

    foreach ($tweeter->getTweets() as $tweet)
    {
        echo $tweet['text'] . '<br />';
        echo "Sent: <b>" . $tweet['created_at'] . "</b></p>";
    }
}

This will enable you to start profiting from object oriented programming.