Issuing application-only requests in Twitter 1.1 using Python

Question

I want to access Twitter 1.1 search endpoint using application-only authentication. To do the same, I'm trying to implement the steps given on Twitter API's documentation here - https://dev.twitter.com/docs/auth/application-only-auth (scroll to "Issuing application-only requests")

I am not able to obtain the "bearer token" in Step 2. When I run the following code, I receive "Response: 302 Found" which is a redirection to Location: https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/token Ideally it should be "200 OK"

import urllib
import base64
import httplib

CONSUMER_KEY = 'my_key'
CONSUMER_SECRET = 'my_secret'

encoded_CONSUMER_KEY = urllib.quote(CONSUMER_KEY)
encoded_CONSUMER_SECRET = urllib.quote(CONSUMER_SECRET)

concat_consumer_url = encoded_CONSUMER_KEY + ":" + encoded_CONSUMER_SECRET

host = 'api.twitter.com'
url = '/oauth2/token'
params = urllib.urlencode({'grant_type' : 'client_credentials'})
req = httplib.HTTP(host)
req.putrequest("POST", url)
req.putheader("Host", host)
req.putheader("User-Agent", "My Twitter 1.1")
req.putheader("Authorization", "Basic %s" % base64.b64encode(concat_consumer_url))
req.putheader("Content-Type" ,"application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8")
req.putheader("Content-Length", "29")
req.putheader("Accept-Encoding", "gzip")

req.endheaders()
req.send(params)

# get the response
statuscode, statusmessage, header = req.getreply()
print "Response: ", statuscode, statusmessage
print "Headers: ", header

I do not want to use any Twitter API wrappers to access this.

HTTP 302 is a redirection. Inspect Location: and redirect? — ch3ka
@ch3ka Location is correct. It shows "location: api.twitter.com/oauth2/token" — anu.agg
what happens if you follow the redirect (request the URL in Location: field)? btw, "302" reply is not an error but a redirect like ch3ka said. — CaptSolo
@CaptSolo Thanks, I edited the question. However, the URL in location is pointing to api.twitter.com/oauth2/token and I have same URL as parameter, i.e. host = 'api.twitter.com', url = '/oauth2/token' Is this anything to do with https ? — anu.agg
@anu.agg it might have (something to do with HTTPS). the docs say one must use HTTPS when doing authentification (or anyone listening could steal your keys). perhaps they enforce it by using a redirect. — CaptSolo

anu.agg anu.agg · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-12T00:55:54

The problem was that the URL had to be called with an HTTPS connection. Please check the modified code which works.

import urllib
import base64
import httplib

CONSUMER_KEY = 'my_key'
CONSUMER_SECRET = 'my_secret'

encoded_CONSUMER_KEY = urllib.quote(CONSUMER_KEY)
encoded_CONSUMER_SECRET = urllib.quote(CONSUMER_SECRET)

concat_consumer_url = encoded_CONSUMER_KEY + ":" + encoded_CONSUMER_SECRET

host = 'api.twitter.com'
url = '/oauth2/token/'
params = urllib.urlencode({'grant_type' : 'client_credentials'})
req = httplib.HTTPSConnection(host)
req.putrequest("POST", url)
req.putheader("Host", host)
req.putheader("User-Agent", "My Twitter 1.1")
req.putheader("Authorization", "Basic %s" % base64.b64encode(concat_consumer_url))
req.putheader("Content-Type" ,"application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8")
req.putheader("Content-Length", "29")
req.putheader("Accept-Encoding", "gzip")

req.endheaders()
req.send(params)

resp = req.getresponse()
print resp.status, resp.reason

Issuing application-only requests in Twitter 1.1 using Python

2 Answers