ProcrystalTwitterBot

Twitter bot to send ascii art 8x8 procrystals to users who @ mention it.

Setup

1. Run initialise_db.py which generates procrystaldb.db SQLite database.
2. Manually set up an S3 bucket called procrystals and add the database.
3. Compile the procrystals code i.e. cmake . ; make
4. Initialise the empty directories ./output/ and ./output/logs/.
5. Add secrets to ./src/twitter/secrets.yml.

Running

Set up a crontab to run scripts/run.sh every minute i.e.

*  *  *  *  *  source /Path/To/.bash_profile; /Path/To/scripts/run.sh

Currently the set up is to check Twitter for the previous 2 minutes. This introduces overlap to ensure nothing is missed and duplicate Tweets should not be sent.

To catch up missed Tweets from the past week just run with:

python get_tweets.py 10000 1

Script Overview

Quick overview of the workings of various scripts

spin_up.py

Run when starting up procrystalline session on new machine.

Pulls SQLite database from S3 bucket to ensure continuity of procrystal IDs.

Sets bio of bot to running.

get_tweets.py

Gets all tweets containing @ mention in specified time period.

Stores username and tweet ID to SQLite database.

Makes temporary file with seed information for procrystals code.

post_lattices.py

Checks database for tweets that need replying to and sends message.

Updates database if tweet was sent successfully.

tear_down.py

Run when finishing session.

Push current database to S3 bucket.

Sets bio of bot to offline.