Twitter HashTag Counter

[dinita]

I'm a big fan of Big Brother UK and as a fun project I have built a Twitter hash tag counter to count the battle between the contestants this year. Using the API from Topsy.com I have built a counter that shows the amount of tweets daily, monthly and hourly. However, I wondered if it was possible for me to calculate the amount of tweets say between the time the page was loaded and the time a user clicks stop so I can see how the numbers have change during the show. Would it be possible to use the setTimeOut() function or is there a better way of doing this?

 

heres my code:

 

<?php
error_reporting(0);
$jsonurl     = "http://otter.topsy.com/searchcount.json?q=%23teamrylan&type=tweet&apikey=FJWCK5YSZIBEUZX4HYJQAAAAABLTPFQ3DVIQAAAAAAAFQGYA";
$json        = file_get_contents($jsonurl, 0, null, null);
$json_output = json_decode($json, true);
$json_output = array_values($json_output);
foreach ($json_output as $key => $val) {
   $hourly  = number_format($val["h"]);
   $daily   = number_format($val["d"]);
   $weekly  = number_format($val["w"]);
   $monthly = number_format($val["m"]);
   $alltime = number_format($val["a"]);
}


echo '<strong>How many times have people tweeted #TeamRylan</strong><br /><br />';
echo 'In the last Hour: ' . $hourly . '<br />';
echo 'In the last Day: ' . $daily . '<br />';
echo 'In the last Week: ' . $weekly . '<br />';
echo 'In the last Month: ' . $monthly . '<br />';
echo 'Ever: ' . $alltime . '<br />';

?>

[premiso]

Using cURL over file_get_contents will be about 3-5times faster than file_get_contents, so if you have the option to use cURL, I would opt for that for a bit more efficiency.

 

Also, you can display the text without echo's using <?php echo $weekly; ?> such as:

 

?>
<strong>How many times have people tweeted #TeamRylan</strong><br /><br />
In the last Hour: <?php echo $hourly; ?><br />
In the last Day: <?php echo $daily; ?><br />
In the last Week: <?php echo $weekly; ?><br />
In the last Month: <?php echo $monthly; ?><br />
Ever: <?php echo $alltime; ?> <br />

 

Granted the display part is more or less preference, but to me that would be easier to edit not having to worry about quotes etc. 

 

Finally, you do not need a foreach, instead just do this:

 

<?php
error_reporting(0);
$jsonurl         = "http://otter.topsy.com/searchcount.json?q=%23teamrylan&type=tweet&apikey=FJWCK5YSZIBEUZX4HYJQAAAAABLTPFQ3DVIQAAAAAAAFQGYA";
$json           = file_get_contents($jsonurl, 0, null, null);
$json_output = json_decode($json, true);

$hourly  = number_format($json_output['response']["h"]);
$daily   = number_format($json_output['response']["d"]);
$weekly  = number_format($json_output['response']["w"]);
$monthly = number_format($json_output['response']["m"]);
$alltime = number_format($json_output['response']["a"]);

 

None of this stuff is really necessary, just some items that will help efficiency a little bit, ie not having to loop etc. 

 

Best of luck.