Twitter tweets as iCalendar (Azure Function)

This Azure Function creates an iCalendar with all (or at least the last 3200) Tweets as events. You can subscribe to this iCalendar from your favorite calendaring program and have calendar entries created on every check-in

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes. See Cloud deployment for notes on how to deploy the project on Azure.

Prerequisites

In order for this service to work you will need:

1. A valid Azure subscription
2. An Twitter developer account

You will also need the following software installed in your dev enviroment:

1. Azure CLI
2. Azure Function Core Tools
3. Node.js (required for Azure Functions Core Tools)

Installing

Twitter API access

To use Twitter APIs, you need to register with the Twitter Developer and create an application, using this form and a Full Archive dev environment.

Generate a unique set of keys (a keyset) that will serve as your application’s credentials:

• API key
• API secret key
• Access token
• Access token secret

You should copy and save your keys locally in the credentials.sh file, for use in this application, as follows:

TWITTERCONSUMERKEY=<API key>
TWITTERCONSUMERSECRET=<API secret key>
TWITTERACCESSTOKEN=<Access Token>
TWITTERACCESSTOKENSECRET=<Access Token secret>
TWITTERSCREENNAME=<Twitter user name>
TWITTERTWEETMODE=extended
TWITTERMAXTWEETS=1000 #This is the max number of tweets to receive, up to 3200.

These credentials will be privatly uploaded to Azure as App settings by the bootstrap.sh script.

node.js enviroment

Install locally all required modules as follows:

$ npm install

Deploying

First you will need to set the values of the following variables in definitions.sh file:

rgName=<Resource Group Name>
storageName=<Storage Account Name>
functionAppName=<FunctionApp Name>
location=<Location>

Note: rgName and storageName should be unique across your Azure subscription. functionAppName should be unique across Azure(!). location should be an Azure Location preferably be as close as possible to your physical location.

Local deployment

Before running this function localy for the first time, you will need to execute the bootstrap.sh script:

$ ./bootstrap.sh
Done

This script will:

• create an Resource Group where all resources required for this function will belong
• create a Storage Account, required by the Azure Functions framework
• create the Azure Function App
• securely upload to Azure all Twitter credentials as App settings
• will fetch these app settings locally so that can be used for local function execution.

After bootstraping, the Azure Function can be executed locally as follows:

$ func host start

Hosting environment: Production
Now listening on: http://0.0.0.0:7071
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.

Http Functions:

        twitter: [GET] http://localhost:7071/api/twitter

While the Azure Function is running locally, you can send an HTTP request towards the URL above (http://localhost:7071/api/twitter) in order to retrieve your tweets in iCalendar format:

$ wget -4 http://localhost:7071/api/twitter

--2020-01-31 16:04:15--  http://localhost:7071/api/twitter
Resolving localhost (localhost)... 127.0.0.1
Connecting to localhost (localhost)|127.0.0.1|:7071... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/calendar]
Saving to: ‘twitter’

twitter                                [ <=>                                                                      ] 748.89K  --.-KB/s    in 0.03s

2020-01-31 16:04:19 (24.1 MB/s) - ‘twitter’ saved [766866]

$ file twitter
twitter: vCalendar calendar file

Cloud deployment

In order to publish to Azure, execute the deploy.sh script:

$ ./deploy.sh

Syncing triggers...
Functions in twittercalendar:
    twitter - [httpTrigger]
        Invoke url: https://<functionAppName>.azurewebsites.net/api/twitter?code=<code>

After succesfull deployment you can send HTTPS request towards the Invoke url above in order to retrieve your tweets in iCalendar format. You can use this Invoke url to subscribe to this iCalendar in your favorite calendaring platform, e.g. Google Calendar or Outlook.

Usage

This Azure Function provides the following API endpoints:

foursquare

https://<functionAppName>.azurewebsites.net/api/twitter

This endpoint returns your last TWITTERMAXTWEETS tweets (up to 3200).

Built With

• Azure CLI
• Azure Function Core Tools
• Node.js
• twit
• ics

Authors

• Spiros Vathis - github: sVathis - Twitter: @svathis

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details