Favorites/list.json since_id not working as expected

[clamz_dev]

The since_id parameter doesn’t seem to be working as expected when retrieving favorites via favorites/list.json. No matter what value is provided for since_id, the most recent tweets seem to be returned. I am assuming that the tweets returned should start at the first available id after since_id and continue for {count} worth. Is this not the case? Does it take a subset of tweets between now and the since_id but then still return the most current ones first? If so, is there some way to reverse the sort order so I can get the oldest tweets since the since_id?

Below is an example of my request URL, although the request itself doesn’t seem to be the problem - all other requests and parameters, including max_id, seem to work as expected.
https://api.twitter.com/1.1/favorites/list.json?screen_name=clamz_dev&count=1&since_id=104248118282967039

[abraham]

I think what you want to use is max_id. The API will return the most recent favorites that match your query. If you move since_id to an older id, the newest available favorites have not changed.

If you are getting tweets 20-30 and set since_id to 10, you will still get tweets 20-30. But if you set max_id 20, you will then get tweets 10-20.

For more details check out the working with timelines docs.

[clamz_dev]

Thanks for the reply @abraham ! Your explanation, and the timeline doc, make sense; since_id just doesn’t function the way I assumed. I assumed if I set a since_id=10, it would return results starting at 10 and working towards the present.

To confirm, if I want to retrieve all favorites since_id=10 (with count=10), I would have to set since_id=10, retrieve 30-20, then set a max_id=20 and work backwards from there until I get to 10, correct?

[clamz_dev]

To put it another way, I assumed since_id was a “return everything since this time” but really it is a filter that says “don’t return anything before this time”… seems like the param name is a bit misleading but oh well

[abraham]

It does work in that since_id will limit to items since that ID, but you have to keep in mind that there may be many page worths of items before you hit the since_id point and pretty much all of the Twitter APIs will return the most recent data first.

[clamz_dev]

Yep, completely agree it works just not the way I expected. Thanks for your help!

[andypiper]