PHP: media posting on twitter? - php

Question

I've been trying to post an image with a simple message onto twitter using PHP and twitteroauth.php.
However, every time I run my code, I only get the $tweetMessage published on the twitter feed without any image.
I searched and searched and read their own documentation but don't even get me started on their own documentation! its like someone who's had a sleepwalk was writing their documentation. Just a bunch of jargon..
And most of the information on STO is either outdated or pointing to a library!
I do not want to use any library as I will have to try to learn someone else's code as well and Surely twitter would allow publishing photo's using their own API without the use of any third party Library?!
Any way, This is my full code:
// Include twitteroauth
require_once('inc/twitteroauth.php');
// Set keys
$consumerKey = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$consumerSecret = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$accessToken = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
$accessTokenSecret = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx';
// Create object
$tweet = new TwitterOAuth($consumerKey, $consumerSecret, $accessToken, $accessTokenSecret);
// Set status message
$tweetMessage = 'This is a tweet to my Twitter account via PHP.';
$image_path="https://www.google.co.uk/images/branding/googlelogo/1x/googlelogo_color_272x92dp.png";
$handle = fopen($image_path,'rb');
$image = fread($handle,filesize($image_path));
fclose($handle);
// Check for 140 characters
if(strlen($tweetMessage) <= 140)
{
// Post the status message
$tweet->post('statuses/update', array('media[]' => "{$image};type=image/jpeg;filename={$image_path}", 'status' => $tweetMessage));
}
Could someone please advise on this issue?
Thanks in advance.
EDIT:
I've changed my code to the following and I get this error:
{"errors":[{"code":195,"message":"Missing or invalid url parameter."}]}
But I'm sure the image is on the specified URL/directory!
This is the code:
require_once 'inc/twitteroauth.php';
define("CONSUMER_KEY", "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
define("CONSUMER_SECRET", "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
define("OAUTH_TOKEN", "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
define("OAUTH_SECRET", "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx");
$connection = new TwitterOAuth(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, OAUTH_TOKEN, OAUTH_SECRET);
$content = $connection->get('images/sign-in-with-twitter-l.png');
$image = 'images/sign-in-with-twitter-l.png';
$status_message = 'Attaching an image to a tweet';
$status = $connection->post('statuses/update_with_media', array('status' => $status_message, 'media[]' => file_get_contents($image)));
echo json_encode($status);
Any idea why this error is being shown?

Answer 1

Uploading media to Twitter is slightly complicated. Essentially, it's a three stage process.
Upload the photo to Twitter.
Receive a media_id back from Twitter.
Post your status and media_id to Twitter.
This is described in great detail at https://dev.twitter.com/rest/reference/post/media/upload
Generally speaking, it is easier for use to use a library like CodeBird as they've already done the hard work of finding all the edge cases.
But, assuming you don't want to do that...
POST the image to /1.1/media/upload.json
Receive back some JSON like
{
"media_id": 553656900508606464,
"media_id_string": "553656900508606464",
"size": 998865,
"image": {
"w": 2234,
"h": 1873,
"image_type": "image/jpeg"
}
}
* Use that media_id_string when you post the status. e.g.
tweet->post('statuses/update', array('media_ids' => $media_id_string, 'status' => $tweetMessage));
Hopefully that gives you enough to understand what's going on.

Answer 2

I solved it like this:
$tweet_img = 'Path/to/image';
$handle = fopen($tweet_img,'rb');
$image = fread($handle,filesize($tweet_img));
fclose($handle);
$parameters = array('media[]' => "{$image};type=image/jpeg;filename={$tweet_img}",'status' => 'Picture time');
$returnT = $connection->post('statuses/update_with_media', $parameters, true);
Horrible twitter API documentation needs improving!! it needs to be written by humans as opposed to a bunch of sleepwalking zombies!!!
This is a very frustrating situation that they put us in when we try to use their API...
They either need stop their API support and remove it all from the public or simply improve their documentation and write it for the public and not just for their own use using jargon words.
Any way, the above code works just fine using the latest twitteroauth
I hope this helps others in my situation.
I feel like i wasted 5 hours for something that should be clear and mentioned in plain English on their site!!!
Rant and Answer over & good luck.. :)