"id_str"or "user_id_str"?

Niimaat · 2014-04-08T13:17:32.000Z

I recently captured some tweets for analysis. I am seeing two fields in my csv; “id_str” and “user_id_str”.

My question is, which of these two ids uniquely identifies the user that posted the tweet?

Thanks!!

romainhuet · 2014-04-08T13:33:00.000Z

Hi Nimat,

In general, id_str can represent a unique ID either for [node: 7286] or [node: 7287]. When looking at a Tweet object for instance, the unique user ID would be the id_str nested in the user object.

In your case, I’m not sure which API endpoint or tool you are using, but since you have both id_str and user_id_str, I believe user_id_str is the unique user ID you are looking for. It’s the attribute we use for users on [node:6281].

Niimaat · 2014-04-08T13:45:24.000Z

Hi Romain,

Thank you for your response.

I used the streamR package of R for my capture.

romainhuet · 2014-04-08T15:41:00.000Z

Alright, then I can confirm user_id_str is indeed extracted from id_str inside the nested user as I described above, so it is the unique user ID you are looking for.

github.com

pablobarbera/streamR/blob/master/streamR/R/parseTweets.R#L98


retweet_count = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'retweet_count'),
favorite_count = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'favorite_count'),
favorited = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'favorited'),
truncated = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'truncated'),
id_str = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'id_str'),
in_reply_to_screen_name = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'in_reply_to_screen_name'),
source = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'source'),
retweeted = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'retweeted'),
created_at = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'created_at'),
in_reply_to_status_id_str = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'in_reply_to_status_id_str'),
in_reply_to_user_id_str = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'in_reply_to_user_id_str'),
lang = unlistWithNA(results.list, 'lang'),
listed_count = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'listed_count')),
verified = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'verified')),
location = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'location')),
user_id_str = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'id_str')),
description = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'description')),
geo_enabled = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'geo_enabled')),
user_created_at = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'created_at')),
statuses_count = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'statuses_count')),
followers_count = unlistWithNA(results.list, c('user', 'followers_count')),

Niimaat · 2014-04-08T16:41:31.000Z

Thanks!!!