How do I convert a Twitter User ID to a Twitter Username

Question

I'm building an app in Rails that needs to convert a Twitter ID into the Twitter username. This is the code that pulls the ID.

url = 'http://twitter.com/' + params[:username]
buffer = open(url, 'UserAgent' => 'irb').read
@vouched_user_twitter_id = buffer[/\d+(?=\.rss)/]

How do I use that number to pull the username once I no longer have params.

Answer 1

You can do this with the users/lookup method. This corresponds to the users method of this gem.

Answer 2

You can get the Twitter username from Twitter ID without using the Twitter API. Calling Twitter API has two issues:

1. It needs an access token after the release of Twitter API version 1.1.

2. The number of requests is limited to 150 requests per hour.