Tweepy check if a tweet is a retweet

Question

I'm starting using Tweepy 3.6.0 with Python and I have some questions.

First, I want to get a list of tweets (with api.search method), but not retweets. I find something weird. Try to access to a tweet with his ID and the author_name. Automatically, it's redirect to the original tweet (different ID and author_name).

After some search I found people talking about a "retweeted_status" key. If the key exit, so it's a RT. But in my example below, there is no retweeted_status in my Tweet Object but the redirection to the original Tweet is here.

Did I understang something badly ?

Thanks

That's ok, no worries. check this question the answer and see if it helps clear your understanding https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26181130/original-tweet-or-retweeted. — chickity china chinese chicken, Apr 26 '18 at 23:21
This seems to work, the results contain the original tweets : `tweets= api.user_timeline(id=user['id'], count=30,include_rts=True); for tweet in tweets: print tweet` — chickity china chinese chicken, Apr 26 '18 at 23:23
I see this thread, but it's about timeline tweet. I'm currently using the api.search() method :/ I update the thread cause I forgot to say this — Nathan Cheval, Apr 27 '18 at 07:27
ok, see if this answer explains well how to use api.search() method: [Managing Tweepy API Search](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22469713/managing-tweepy-api-search) — chickity china chinese chicken, Apr 27 '18 at 19:18

TravisPooley · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-02T01:43:30.070

You can chose to search for only retweets or exclude all retweets from your search query.

For searching for no retweets "-filter:retweets"

for tweet in tweepy.Cursor(api.search, q='github -filter:retweets',tweet_mode='extended').items(5):

For searching for only retweets "filter:retweets"

 for tweet in tweepy.Cursor(api.search, q='github filter:retweets',tweet_mode='extended').items(5):

Extra Information:

Whilst you can exclude retweets straight in the search query, it is also very easy to find if a tweet is a retweet because all retweets begin with "rt @UsernameOfAuthor". You can find if a tweet is a retweet by doing a basic if statement to see if the tweet begins with the rt.

first make a basic query and save the information into variables.

for tweet in tweepy.Cursor(api.search, q='github',tweet_mode='extended').items(5):
    # Defining Tweets Creators Name
    tweettext = str( tweet.full_text.lower().encode('ascii',errors='ignore')) #encoding to get rid of characters that may not be able to be displayed
    # Defining Tweets Id
    tweetid = tweet.id

Then print the info for demonstration purposes

    # printing the text of the tweet
    print('tweet text: '+str(tweettext))
    # printing the id of the tweet
    print('tweet id: '+str(tweetid))

Then there is the if statement to find if it is a retweet or not

# checking if the tweet is a retweet (this method is basic but it will work)
if tweettext.startswith("rt @") == True:
    print('This tweet is a retweet')
else:
    print('This tweet is not retweet')

Thanks a lot for your answer, I'll try this out :) But the "-filter:retweets" seems to be a little buggy. I tried a little and a lot of times I didn't find some recent tweets :/ — Nathan Cheval, May 02 '18 at 07:47
Twitters free API's are pretty unreliable, they don't offer a for archival view really. I added the if statement to check if its a retweet to my response too, give that a go too if the other way is not working well enough. :) — TravisPooley, May 02 '18 at 08:18
that's true ahah. I find another way to do it : "isRT = hasattr(tweet, 'retweeted_status')" — Nathan Cheval, May 02 '18 at 12:58
There is a range of ways to tell if a tweet is a retweet I gave the methods I prefer to use. Another way you can check is even just check if the tweet contains the property called "retweeted_status". There's many ways to skin a cat :) — TravisPooley, May 04 '18 at 00:35

Tweepy check if a tweet is a retweet

1 Answers1