I’ve constructed a class that implements two functions, posting a status update and following an author .. This is purely for educational purposes and is intended to demonstrate the art of page scraping as well as the use of CURL for posting and retrieving data, I would of course never personally recommend using the code because I’m sure it’s some sort of violation of their TOS ;) so yeah.. don’t do it! ;) ;)

Some important things to note:

1. This will break if twitter changes their html up too much
2. This is probably a violation, so if you do use it, use it reasonably .. don’t submit a million requests per second, throttle it down =)
3. You’re using it at your own risk
4. It will post status updates as if you posted from a mobile device ( Ie. Mobile Web )

DOWNLOAD: Click to download example and class file

USAGE:

include(“tweeter.php”);

$tweeter = new tweeter();
$tweeter->login($username,$password);
$tweeter->post_tweet(“Hey, this is cool!”);
$tweeter->folllow(“oneduality”);

Contents of tweeter.php:

class tweet {
    var $user;
    var $token='';
    var $ch='';
    var $action='';

    // Logs in to twitter
    function login($user,$pass) {
        $this->user = $user;

        // Initialize CH
        if (!function_exists("curl_init")) die("This requires the CURL module, please install CURL for php.");
        $this->ch = curl_init();

        // Parse the login form
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://mobile.twitter.com/session/new");
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 5);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $this->user . ".txt");
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $this->user . ".txt");
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3 ");
        $page = curl_exec($this->ch);

        $page = stristr($page, "
");
        preg_match("/form action=\"(.*?)\"/", $page, $this->action);
        preg_match("/input name=\"authenticity_token\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"(.*?)\"/", $page, $this->token);

        // Login and get your home page
        $strpost = "authenticity_token=".urlencode($this->token[1])."&username=".urlencode($user)."&password=".urlencode($pass);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->action[1]);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $strpost);
        $page = curl_exec($this->ch);

        // Verify that we logged in ok
        preg_match("/\
(.*?)\<\/div\>/", $page, $warning);
        if (isset($warning[1])) return $warning[1];
        $page = stristr($page,"
");
        preg_match("/form action=\"(.*?)\"/", $page, $this->action);
        preg_match("/input name=\"authenticity_token\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"(.*?)\"/", $page, $this->authenticity_token);
    }

    function post_tweet($status) {

        // Set status
        $tweet['display_coordinates']='';
        $tweet['in_reply_to_status_id']='';
        $tweet['lat']='';
        $tweet['long']='';
        $tweet['place_id']='';
        $tweet['text']=$status;
        $ar = array("authenticity_token" => $this->token[1], "tweet"=>$tweet);
        $data = http_build_query($ar);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_URL, $this->action[1]);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
        $page = curl_exec($this->ch);

        return true;
    }

    function follow($author_name) {

        $action = "http://mobile.twitter.com/$author_name/follow";
        $ar = array("authenticity_token" => $this->token[1], "tweet"=>$tweet, 'last_url'=>'/$author_name', );
        $data = http_build_query($ar);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_URL, $action);
        curl_setopt($this->ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
        $page = curl_exec($this->ch);

        return true;
    }
}

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I was browsing for an alternative that was simple and stumbled on a greasemonkey script to clear recent activity,  adapted that code to suit my needs and the result is my greasemonkey wall cleaner.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/92664

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PHP is an especially effective programing language because it allows advanced computer programing  and is easy to mix with web pages. Another advantage of PHP is that the programming language interfaces very easily with MySQL, a popular computer database. MYSQL is a commercial class database application that is made available free under the Open Source to anyone. Another plus of PHP is that it is Open Source Code. The actual computer code that is PHP is available to the public free of charge, while the source code for products such as ASP is not. Therefore PHP is very affordable. Because PHP is open source, there’s a big community of PHP coders that help one another with code. This means PHP programmers can rely on one another by using reusable pieces of code called functions and classes besides constantly reinventing the wheel. This can dramatically cut back on production time.

PHP is based on C++ language and the syntax used in PHP is quite similar to C/C++. C/C++ is still considered the best programing language by many programmers and people who love this language would surely feel comfier with the syntax of PHP.

PHP and MySQL are excellent choice for webmasters anticipating automate their sites. Now search spiders “see” all the content on a PHP page, as is way it is viewed in a browser. The creation of a php-shopping cart is surprisingly simple and when finished precision it could translate into a extremely effective and universally accepted php-shopping cart.

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In a previous blog entry (please refer to Joomla and K2, a True Romance Story), I mentioned some of the advantages of the Joomla K2 component. The obvious question is how can the K2 component and the Mass Content component work together when the Mass Content component creates standard Joomla content and the K2 component creates content that is managed outside of core system?

Fortunately, there is a solution that allows you to incorporate both components and reap the benefits of each. The K2 component has a very nifty feature that lets you import content. So, when developing a new website, as long as you follow these steps in the proper sequence, you should be fine.

1. Install the Mass Content component
2. Create your sections, categories and content items within the Mass Content component
3. When everything is set up as you like it, run the K2 article import

With step #3, the K2 system will turn Joomla sections into top level K2 categories and the standard Joomla categories into K2 sub-categories. In my experience with this, everything has gone without a hitch.

You can now start building your navigational structure in the K2 system and delete all of the items, categories and sections from within the core Joomla content system. With this approach, I hope you will find as I did, that despite using two additional components – K2 and Mass Content – you will save quite a bit of development time.

Related Links:
Mass Content Component – Download Link
K2 for Joomla – Download Link

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Meet K2

The component “K2″ is an alternate content system for Joomla that provides many additional features, the most notable features that have proven to be invaluable are:

1. Nested categories
2. The capability to assign templates to categories
3. Improved Access Control List (ACL)
4. Article comments

There is far more to K2 than the features listed above, but these features have made an already powerful content management solution a much more robust package to say the least.

Utilizing nested categories and custom templates, TDH developers have been able to create a feature-rich product catalog, for example. The possibilities are endless and I’m excited to see what other magic can be conjured up with this powerful tool set.

Joomla can be found at http://www.joomla.org, and you can check out the free K2 component at http://getk2.org.

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UPDATE: as of 12/13/2010 I have a greasemonkey script for firefox that works much better than this.. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/92664

Continue reading if you want :)

OK I won’t lie, this was cobbled together quickly .. and it will only delete so many at a time so you’ll need to run it a few times if you’ve got a lot of posts, I could make it so that it loops and deletes everything but I wanted to put it out there.

Use it at your own risk! if you get banned from facebook for automating something then that’s your own fault.. this is purely for educational purposes only and all that jazz =) *wink wink*
Continue on reading!..

This code will log you in, go to m.facebook.com/minifeed.php and pull a list of stories then will loop through and delete them with a 5 second rest between deletes..  (less obvious) .. it also pretends to be firefox.

This requires WWW::Mechanize, HTTP::Cookies, HTML::Parser and HTML::TagParser .. ENJOY!

#!/usr/bin/perl
use WWW::Mechanize;
use HTTP::Cookies;
use HTML::Parser;
use HTML::TagParser;

my $username = “user\@domain.com”;
my $password = “password”;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();

$mech->agent_alias( ‘Linux Mozilla’ );
$mech->cookie_jar(HTTP::Cookies->new());
$mech->post(“https://login.facebook.com/login.php?m&next=http://m.facebook.com/minifeed.php”,{email=>$username,pass=>$password});
my $test = $mech->content();
$mech->content() =~ /url=(.*?)”/;
my $newurl = $1;

$mech->get($newurl);

my $html = $mech->content();

my $parser = HTML::Parser->new( api_version => 3,start_h => [\&start,"tagname, attr"], );
my @links;
sub start {
my ($tag, $attr) = @_;
if ($tag =~ /^a$/ and defined $attr->{href}) {
return
if ($attr->{href} =~ m!^http://! and $opts{r}); # exclude absolute url when -r
return
if ($attr->{href} !~ m!http://! and $opts{a});# exclude relative url when -a
push @links, $attr->{href};
}
}
$parser->parse($html);
$parser->eof;

foreach $link (@links) {
if ($link =~ /delete\.php/) {
$mech->get(“http://m.facebook.com” . $link);

$html_p = HTML::TagParser->new( $mech->content() );
@elem = $html_p->getElementsByTagName( “form” );
$action = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“action”);

@elem = $html_p->getElementsByAttribute( “name”, “fb_dtsg” );
$fb_dtsg = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“value”);

@elem = $html_p->getElementsByAttribute( “name”, “ministory_key” );
$ministory_key = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“value”);

@elem = $html_p->getElementsByAttribute( “name”, “story_type” );
$story_type = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“value”);

@elem = $html_p->getElementsByAttribute( “name”, “profile_id” );
$profile_id = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“value”);

@elem = $html_p->getElementsByAttribute( “name”, “confirm” );
$confirm_id = $elem[0]->getAttribute(“value”);

print “Deleting mini story key: $ministory_key..\n”;
$mech->post(“http://m.facebook.com” . $action,
{fb_dtsg=>$username,
ministory_key=>$ministory_key,
story_type=>$story_type,
profile_id=>$profile_id,
confirm_id=>$confirm_id});
sleep(5);

}

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I evaluated VirtueMart which I decided was just too bulky and buggy to work with .. then I checked out dozens of others, but none were suited to our needs..  I’ve run into this issue before and decided to roll my own cart using existing tools.. I opted to use K2 (since Joomla can’t do subcategories), Simplecaddy (k2 is not a cart) and some custom tweaks..

Read on for more info!

1. K2 is an amazing content organization system (link) that offers a far more flexible way to manage your categories/sub categories…  it’s not a shopping cart, but it makes a very effective catalog .. it’s capable of acting as a blog, an event calendar, a catalog (with no ecom functionality) and many other things… built in content voting, comments and social sharing options.. it can be everything, or it can be minimal depending on what you turn on and off.

2. Simple Caddy (link) is a basic cart system, but it lacks a catalog … it’s designed for you to be able to build your own product pages within Joomla and slap on “add to cart” button and then it provides a method to check out via paypal (only paypal is supported).

3. My own code to import a CSV into the system.. it’s job is to create the category hierarchy, add the products to simplecaddy, create the items in K2 and apply the simplecaddy tag for “add to cart” .. this CSV also adds to another database with additional information that is used to create a product selector, or I guess a better word would be a drill down search.

In addition to the three main ingredients above, I made a series of tweeks to both components to suit my needs.. some of the things I’ve done.

1. I gutted the K2 item image system, I wanted to keep it automated and simple so I have K2 looking for category images by category name and product images by product ID… this gives easy ability to just properly name some files and bulk upload them.. this was done entirely in K2 templates.

2. I added an option in Simplecaddy to disable ecom, which simply means it doesn’t appear even with the tag in place.. the reason being is that for phase one, we’re just building the catalog and leaving the cart disabled.. if the tag is in place and the simplecaddy plugin is disabled, the tag shows.. we wanted to be able to enable ecom without needing to import again, just a flip of a switch.

3. An additional payment option for simplecaddy (authorized.net)

The result is a fully functioning shopping cart solution powered off of a simple CSV file

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Today I’ve released the latest version of the Oneduality Dynamic Header Images Joomla module (say that 5 times fast) ..  there are a number of enhancements that increase the usefulness and possibilities of the module, primarily, a modification that will allow you the ability to load more than one instance of the module on a page, as well as change the type of images you’re using .. for full details and to download it, click here!

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I could easily do some styling to all the tables, but what I really wanted to do was alternate the row’s colors so that everything didn’t run together, but without a class for each row (odd/even for example) .. I couldn’t do it in CSS.

That is where Javascript comes in! read on for more..

The first thing I did in my PHP code that pulled these tables out of the database was wrap the table in a div with a class of “product_group”, then I put this HTML code in the section of the website ..

[sniplet alternating]
We have a function called getElementsByClass which works in both IE and FireFox, I’ve not tested in ALL browsers so your mileage may vary .. but this allows us to build an array of all elements within a tag of a specified class, in our case, we’re pulling in all elements contained in “product_group”.. Once we have that, we use getElementsByTagName to pull out all of the table rows (TR), and loop through them .. we then tag each one with a class of even or odd.

After you’ve done that, it’s really just matter of assigning a background color to the alternating classes you’ve set up!

Have fun!

The module has also been converted to donationware, and there are two upcoming releases!

Roadmap

1. Support fort Virtuemart (custom header images per department) (1.5.2)
2. A re-write of the logic, this will allow you to have a default image by section and category rather than having to have an image for every article. (1.6)

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