Integrating a Twitter feed into a WordPress site as a shortcode

Question

I'm pulling my hair out over this one. I'm trying to create a shortcode within a wordpress theme I am building that when used, displays a users tweets.

I am using the code provided by Andrew Biggart here https://github.com/andrewbiggart/latest-tweets-php-o-auth to create the twitter feed.

Here is how my code is set up, I have a php file in the root of my theme called "tweets.php", this is where I have set my consumer key etc - For now I have hard coded these in just so I can get it working. The full php code looks like this:

<?php

/**
 * Twitter feed which uses twitteroauth for authentication
 * 
 * @version 1.0
 * @author  Andrew Biggart
 * @link    https://github.com/andrewbiggart/latest-tweets-php-o-auth/
 * 
 * Notes:
 * Caching is employed because Twitter only allows their RSS and json feeds to be accesssed 150
 * times an hour per user client.
 * --
 * Dates can be displayed in Twitter style (e.g. "1 hour ago") by setting the 
 * $twitter_style_dates param to true.
 *
 * You will also need to register your application with Twitter, to get your keys and tokens.
 * You can do this here: (https://dev.twitter.com/).
 *
 * Don't forget to add your username to the bottom of the script.
 * 
 * Credits:
 ***************************************************************************************
 * Initial script before API v1.0 was retired
 * http://f6design.com/journal/2010/10/07/display-recent-twitter-tweets-using-php/
 *
 * Which includes the following credits
 * Hashtag/username parsing based on: http://snipplr.com/view/16221/get-twitter-tweets/
 * Feed caching: http://www.addedbytes.com/articles/caching-output-in-php/
 * Feed parsing: http://boagworld.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=4639
 ***************************************************************************************
 *
 ***************************************************************************************
 * Authenticating a User Timeline for Twitter OAuth API V1.1
 * http://www.webdevdoor.com/php/authenticating-twitter-feed-timeline-oauth/
 ***************************************************************************************
 *
 ***************************************************************************************
 * Twitteroauth which has been used for the authentication process
 * https://github.com/abraham/twitteroauth
 ***************************************************************************************
 *
 *
**/

// Set timezone. (Modify to match your timezone) If you need help with this, you can find it here. (http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php)
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/London');

// Require TwitterOAuth files. (Downloadable from : https://github.com/abraham/twitteroauth)
require_once("twitteroauth/twitteroauth/twitteroauth.php");

// Function to authenticate app with Twitter.
function getConnectionWithAccessToken($cons_key, $cons_secret, $oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret) {
  $connection = new TwitterOAuth($cons_key, $cons_secret, $oauth_token, $oauth_token_secret);
  return $connection;
}

// Function to display the latest tweets.
function display_latest_tweets(

    // Function parameters.
    $twitter_user_id,
    $cache_file          = './tweets.txt',  // Change this to the path of your cache file. (Default : ./tweets.txt)
    $tweets_to_display   = 5,               // Number of tweets you would like to display. (Default : 5)
    $ignore_replies      = false,           // Ignore replies from the timeline. (Default : false)
    $include_rts         = false,           // Include retweets. (Default : false)
    $twitter_wrap_open   = '<ul class="home-tweets-ul">',
    $twitter_wrap_close  = '</ul>',
    $tweet_wrap_open     = '<li><p class="home-tweet-tweet">',
    $meta_wrap_open      = '<br/><span class="home-tweet-date">',
    $meta_wrap_close     = '</span>',
    $tweet_wrap_close    = '</p></li>',
    $date_format         = 'g:i A M jS',    // Date formatting. (http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php)
    $twitter_style_dates = true){           // Twitter style days. [about an hour ago] (Default : true)

    // Twitter keys (You'll need to visit https://dev.twitter.com and register to get these.
    $consumerkey         = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
    $consumersecret      = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
    $accesstoken         = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
    $accesstokensecret   = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";

    // Seconds to cache feed (Default : 3 minutes).
    $cachetime           = 60*3;

    // Time that the cache was last updtaed.
    $cache_file_created  = ((file_exists($cache_file))) ? filemtime($cache_file) : 0;

    // A flag so we know if the feed was successfully parsed.
    $tweet_found         = false;

    // Show cached version of tweets, if it's less than $cachetime.
    if (time() - $cachetime < $cache_file_created) {
        $tweet_found = true;
        // Display tweets from the cache.
        readfile($cache_file);       
    } else {

    // Cache file not found, or old. Authenticae app.
    $connection = getConnectionWithAccessToken($consumerkey, $consumersecret, $accesstoken, $accesstokensecret);

        if($connection){
            // Get the latest tweets from Twitter
            $get_tweets = $connection->get("https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=".$twitter_user_id."&count=".$tweets_to_display."&include_rts=".$include_rts."&exclude_replies=".$ignore_replies);

            // Error check: Make sure there is at least one item.
            if (count($get_tweets)) {

                // Define tweet_count as zero
                $tweet_count = 0;

                // Start output buffering.
                ob_start();

                // Open the twitter wrapping element.
                $twitter_html = $twitter_wrap_open;

                // Iterate over tweets.
                foreach($get_tweets as $tweet) {

                        $tweet_found = true;
                        $tweet_count++;
                        $tweet_desc = $tweet->text;
                        // Add hyperlink html tags to any urls, twitter ids or hashtags in the tweet.
                        $tweet_desc = preg_replace("/((http)+(s)?:\/\/[^<>\s]+)/i", "<a href=\"\\0\" target=\"_blank\">\\0</a>", $tweet_desc );
                        $tweet_desc = preg_replace("/[@]+([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)/", "<a href=\"http://twitter.com/\\1\" target=\"_blank\">\\0</a>", $tweet_desc );
                        $tweet_desc = preg_replace("/[#]+([A-Za-z0-9-_]+)/", "<a href=\"http://twitter.com/search?q=%23\\1\" target=\"_blank\">\\0</a>", $tweet_desc );


          // replace t.co links with expanded link, if present
          $entities = $tweet->entities;
          if(!empty($entities->urls[0]->expanded_url)) {
          $tweet_desc = str_replace($entities->urls[0]->url, $entities->urls[0]->expanded_url, $tweet_desc);
          }


                        // Convert Tweet display time to a UNIX timestamp. Twitter timestamps are in UTC/GMT time.
                        $tweet_time = strtotime($tweet->created_at);    
                        if ($twitter_style_dates){
                            // Current UNIX timestamp.
                            $current_time = time();
                            $time_diff = abs($current_time - $tweet_time);
                            switch ($time_diff) 
                            {
                                case ($time_diff < 60):
                                    $display_time = $time_diff.' seconds ago';                  
                                    break;      
                                case ($time_diff >= 60 && $time_diff < 3600):
                                    $min = floor($time_diff/60);
                                    $display_time = $min.' minutes ago';                  
                                    break;      
                                case ($time_diff >= 3600 && $time_diff < 86400):
                                    $hour = floor($time_diff/3600);
                                    $display_time = 'about '.$hour.' hour';
                                    if ($hour > 1){ $display_time .= 's'; }
                                    $display_time .= ' ago';
                                    break;          
                                default:
                                    $display_time = date($date_format,$tweet_time);
                                    break;
                            }
                        } else {
                            $display_time = date($date_format,$tweet_time);
                        }

                        // Render the tweet.
                        $twitter_html .= $tweet_wrap_open.html_entity_decode($tweet_desc).$meta_wrap_open.'<a href="http://twitter.com/'.$twitter_user_id.'">'.$display_time.'</a>'.$meta_wrap_close.$tweet_wrap_close;

                    // If we have processed enough tweets, stop.
                    if ($tweet_count >= $tweets_to_display){
                        break;
                    }

                }

                // Close the twitter wrapping element.
                $twitter_html .= $twitter_wrap_close;
                echo $twitter_html;

                // Generate a new cache file.
                $file = fopen($cache_file, 'w');

                // Save the contents of output buffer to the file, and flush the buffer. 
                fwrite($file, ob_get_contents()); 
                fclose($file); 
                ob_end_flush();

            }

        }

    }

}
display_latest_tweets('samskirrow');

?>

I also have a subdirectory called twitteroauth containing the relevant files (taken straight from Andrew Biggart's github page)

Lastly, in my functions.php I have the following code to create a shortcode:

function twitter_feed( $atts ){
get_template_part('tweets');
}
add_shortcode( 'tweets', 'twitter_feed' );

The idea being that when a user writes [tweets] it shows the latest tweets. At the moment I'm just trying to get it to work by hardcoding all the user info, but right now it just outputs the date "1.00AM 1st Jan" and it links to the users twitter account.

I don't know where I've gone wrong, but also I don't know how to go about debugging it, so any help in the right direction would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

You may try this, it may solve your problem because get_template_part basically reacts like PHP's require , it doesn't return but echos the content immediately where it's been called.

add_shortcode('twitter_feed', 'fn-twitter_feed');   
function fn-twitter_feed($attr, $content)
{        
    ob_start();  
    get_template_part('path/to', 'tweets');  
    $ret = ob_get_contents();  
    ob_end_clean();  
    return $ret;    
}