Streaming Data

Specifying the Rules

Filter stream rules are specified in an event query file according to Twitter’s filter stream syntax rules.

See an example of a filter stream query file here.

Using the Filter Stream

Once the event query file is ready, the command for streaming tweets is

python -m twitter.stream event_name

The stream can be cancelled at any time with CTRL+C.

Streaming Parameters

The stream has several optional parameters. These are specified as flags on the standard stream command, for example:

python -m twitter.stream event_name --update_rules -update_interval 10

Parameter	Description
config_f	The configuration file to use if not using the default
delete_existing_rules / update_rules	Whether to delete rules that have already been sent to the Twitter API for a previous stream. By default, rules are deleted from the API
append / overwrite	Whether to append JSON tweets to an existing file for the event. By default, tweets are appended
verbose / quiet	Whether to print information/updates to the console while running the stream. By default, information is printed
update_interval	How often to print updates of the number of tweets collected, in minutes
dry_run	Whether to run a “dry run” of the rules without connecting to the Twitter stream to make sure that they are syntactically valid