Get Twitter Following Count - php

Question

Im creating a widget for a Wordpress site and i am trying to get the twitter following count, I can get the followers count which is taken from http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/displaying-the-total-number-of-twitter-followers-as-text-on-wordpress/. Any help would be great.
thanks Pierce
Current code in functions.php:
// Twitter
function getTwitterFollowers($screenName = 'hellowWorld')
{
// some variables
$consumerKey = 'hidden';
$consumerSecret = 'hidden';
$token = get_option('cfTwitterToken');
// get follower count from cache
$numberOfFollowers = get_transient('cfTwitterFollowers');
// cache version does not exist or expired
if (false === $numberOfFollowers) {
// getting new auth bearer only if we don't have one
if(!$token) {
// preparing credentials
$credentials = $consumerKey . ':' . $consumerSecret;
$toSend = base64_encode($credentials);
// http post arguments
$args = array(
'method' => 'POST',
'httpversion' => '1.1',
'blocking' => true,
'headers' => array(
'Authorization' => 'Basic ' . $toSend,
'Content-Type' => 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8'
),
'body' => array( 'grant_type' => 'client_credentials' )
);
add_filter('https_ssl_verify', '__return_false');
$response = wp_remote_post('https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/token', $args);
$keys = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($response));
if($keys) {
// saving token to wp_options table
update_option('cfTwitterToken', $keys->access_token);
$token = $keys->access_token;
}
}
// we have bearer token wether we obtained it from API or from options
$args = array(
'httpversion' => '1.1',
'blocking' => true,
'headers' => array(
'Authorization' => "Bearer $token"
)
);
add_filter('https_ssl_verify', '__return_false');
$api_url = "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/users/show.json?screen_name=$screenName";
$response = wp_remote_get($api_url, $args);
if (!is_wp_error($response)) {
$followers = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($response));
$numberOfFollowers = $followers->followers_count;
} else {
// get old value and break
$numberOfFollowers = get_option('cfNumberOfFollowers');
// uncomment below to debug
//die($response->get_error_message());
}
// cache for an hour
set_transient('cfTwitterFollowers', $numberOfFollowers, 1*60*60);
update_option('cfNumberOfFollowers', $numberOfFollowers);
}
return $numberOfFollowers;
}

Answer 1

It was pretty simple if I just read the documentation anyway...
Instead of followers_count i replaced it with friends_count as outlined in the API 1.1 documentation. :)