TwitterContext Limitations outside of LinqToTwitter API calls

Question

Follow up to Extract BearerToken from LinqToTwitter IAuthorizer

Although I am not using the LTT library for anything past authorization (at this point), I still seem to be limited to 200 tweets when calling directly to the /statuses/user_timeline API with

{parameter string: user_id={0}&screen_name={1}&count=3200&exclude_replies=true&include_rts=false&trim_user=false&contributor_details=false}

And

webClient.Headers.Add(String.Format("Authorization:  Bearer {0}", BearerToken));

Is this a limit of TwitterContext Authorization? If so how can I change that limit without using the library calls?

i.e. I am not using

statusResponse = (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status ...)

I don't use the library because it is utilizing the Twitter search object which may produce inconsistent results per Twitter's limitations on the search object.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

According to Twitter's statuses/user_timeline documentation, the max value of count is 200. However, that's a per query max. You can make multiple queries to retrieve up to 3200 tweets. Twitter has a nice explanation, in their Working with Timelines page, on how to work with timelines to retrieve those 3200 tweets. I realize you aren't querying with LINQ to Twitter, but for the benefit of anyone else who finds this answer, this how LINQ to Twitter does it:

static async Task RunUserTimelineQueryAsync(TwitterContext twitterCtx)
{
    //List<Status> tweets =
    //    await
    //    (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status
    //     where tweet.Type == StatusType.User &&
    //           tweet.ScreenName == "JoeMayo"
    //     select tweet)
    //    .ToListAsync();

    const int MaxTweetsToReturn = 200;
    const int MaxTotalResults = 100;

    // oldest id you already have for this search term
    ulong sinceID = 1;

    // used after the first query to track current session
    ulong maxID;

    var combinedSearchResults = new List<Status>();

    List<Status> tweets =
        await
        (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status
         where tweet.Type == StatusType.User &&
               tweet.ScreenName == "JoeMayo" &&
               tweet.Count == MaxTweetsToReturn &&
               tweet.SinceID == sinceID &&
               tweet.TweetMode == TweetMode.Extended
         select tweet)
        .ToListAsync();

    if (tweets != null)
    {
        combinedSearchResults.AddRange(tweets);
        ulong previousMaxID = ulong.MaxValue;
        do
        {
            // one less than the newest id you've just queried
            maxID = tweets.Min(status => status.StatusID) - 1;

            Debug.Assert(maxID < previousMaxID);
            previousMaxID = maxID;

            tweets =
                await
                (from tweet in twitterCtx.Status
                 where tweet.Type == StatusType.User &&
                       tweet.ScreenName == "JoeMayo" &&
                       tweet.Count == MaxTweetsToReturn &&
                       tweet.MaxID == maxID &&
                       tweet.SinceID == sinceID &&
                       tweet.TweetMode == TweetMode.Extended
                 select tweet)
                .ToListAsync();

            combinedSearchResults.AddRange(tweets);

        } while (tweets.Any() && combinedSearchResults.Count < MaxTotalResults);

        PrintTweetsResults(tweets);
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine("No entries found.");
    }
}

which you can find in the LINQ to Twitter documentation on Querying the User Timeline. I also wrote a blog post, Working with Timelines with LINQ to Twitter, to explain LINQ to Twitter's approach to paging. It's for an earlier (non-async) version, but the concepts are still the same.