Question
I have been trying to make a custom twitter widget which displays the last few tweets from multiple feeds. Each feed creates an instance of the following Class:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13809776
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Russian<?php
class Foo{
protected $name = '';
//opts
protected $numTweets = 3;
protected $transName = ''; // Name of value in database.
protected $backupName = '';
protected $cacheTime = 5; // Time in minutes between updates.
protected $exclude_replies = true; // Leave out @replies?
public function __construct( $username ){
$this->name = $username;
$this->transName = 'jctft3' . $username;
$this->backupName = 'jctfb3' . $username;
}
public function get_feed(){
$feed = get_transient( $this->transName );
// Do we already have saved tweet data? If not, lets get it.
if( $feed === false ){
$feed = $this->call_twitter();
}
$html = $this->build_html( $feed );
return $html;
}// protected function get_feed(){...}
protected function call_twitter(){
/* We need the following:
$feed = array(
'username' => '',
'friendly_name' => '',
'url' => ''
'tweets' => array(
array(
'html' => '',
'url' => '',
'time' => ''
),
array(
'html' => '',
'url' => '',
'time' => ''
)
)
);
*/
$feed = array();
// Get the tweets from Twitter.
$response = wp_remote_get( "http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name={$this->name}&count=10&exclude_replies=false" );
// parse Twitter response into an array
if( !is_wp_error($response) && $response[ 'response' ][ 'code' ] == 200 ){
// Get tweets into an array.
$tweets_json = json_decode( $response['body'], true );
// Now update the array to store just what we need.
$feed[ 'username' ] = $tweets_json[ 0 ][ 'user' ][ 'screen_name' ];
$feed[ 'friendly_name' ] = $tweets_json[ 0 ][ 'user' ][ 'name' ];
$feed[ 'url' ] = 'https://twitter.com/' . $tweets_json[ 0 ][ 'user' ][ 'screen_name' ];
$feed[ 'tweets' ] = array();
foreach ( $tweets_json as $tweet ){
$my_tweet = array();
// Core info.
$my_tweet[ 'url' ] = 'http://twitter.com/#!/'. $feed[ 'username' ] .'/status/'. $tweet['id_str'];
// Message. Convert links to real links.
$pattern = '/http:(\S)+/';
$replace = '<a href="${0}" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">${0}</a>';
$my_tweet[ 'html' ] = preg_replace( $pattern, $replace, $tweet['text'] );
//$my_tweet[ 'html' ] = $tweet['text'];
// Need to get time in Unix format.
$time = $this->twitter_time( $tweet[ 'created_at' ] );
//$time = date_parse( $time );
//$uTime = mktime($time['hour'], $time['minute'], $time['second'], $time['month'], $time['day'], $time['year']);
$my_tweet[ 'time' ] = $time;
array_push( $feed[ 'tweets' ], $my_tweet );
}
// Save our new transient, and update the backup.
set_transient( $this->transName, $feed, 60 * $this->cacheTime );
update_option( $this->backupName, $feed );
}
else{
// i.e. Fetching new tweets failed.
$feed = get_option( $this->backupName ); // False if there has never been data saved.
}
return $feed;
}
protected function build_html( $feed ){
$html = '';
$is_top = false;
if( $feed[ 'friendly_name' ] == 'Johnny Cupcakes' ){
$is_top = true;
}
ob_start();
include( plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . '../html/feed.html' );
$html = ob_get_clean();
return $html;
}
}
?>
The first time the plugin builds the html ( that is, when the data is being pulled directly from twitter and not from data stored in our local database ), everything displays fine. However, when I use get_transient() to retrieve the cached data, on some of the tweets (which tweet generates this error and how many tweets refuse to function varies) I get the following error:
Warning: Illegal string offset 'username' in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/sites/wp-johnnycupcakes/wp-content/plugins/jc-twitter-widget/html/feed.html on line 12
Line 12 of feed.html is:
<h3><a target="_new" href="<?php echo $feed[ 'url' ]; ?>"> @<?php echo $feed[ 'username' ]; ?> </a></h3>
Upon further investigation, it seems like sometimes on some of my feeds, when I use get_transient(), the value returned is no longer an array, but an encoded string ( which I'm assuming is Wordpress's encoding convention for storing transient_values in the database ). The string looks like this:
string(830) "a:4:{s:8:"username";s:15:"JHNYCPKS_London";s:13:"friendly_name";s:18:"Johnny Cupcakes UK";s:3:"url";s:35:"https://twitter.com/JHNYCPKS_London";s:6:"tweets";a:9:{i:0;a:3:{s:3:"url";s:63:"http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_London/status/278196905350164480";s:4:"html";s:128:"Baked in USA long sleeve, Truffle and White Mens Basic Tee's are now back in stock come and grab them now while supplies last!!!";s:4:"time";s:11:"2 hours ago";}i:1;a:3:{s:3:"url";s:63:"http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_London/status/278180246967173121";s:4:"html";s:121:"Put a pin on it! @ Johnny Cupcakes http://t.co/nxVSAG63";s:4:"time";s:11:"4 hours ago";}i:2;a:3:{s:3:"url";s:63:"http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_London/status/278179975474053120";s:4:"html";s:161:"Big kid magnet came in today! "
When an array is returned (and thus the feed is successfully displayed), it looks like this:
array(4) {
["username"]=>
string(15) "JHNYCPKS_Boston"
["friendly_name"]=>
string(20) "JohnnyCupcakesBoston"
["url"]=>
string(35) "https://twitter.com/JHNYCPKS_Boston"
["tweets"]=>
array(7) {
[0]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/278204808756862976"
["html"]=>
string(139) "IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING! IT'S RAINING!"
["time"]=>
string(11) "2 hours ago"
}
[1]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/278169219160489984"
["html"]=>
string(167) "Four #freshlybaked keychains were released this weekend! Which is your favorite? <a href="http://t.co/Xn16NsjU" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/Xn16NsjU</a>"
["time"]=>
string(11) "4 hours ago"
}
[2]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/278137791391617025"
["html"]=>
string(29) "@thatkidTHILL good luck, man!"
["time"]=>
string(11) "6 hours ago"
}
[3]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/278137703281881088"
["html"]=>
string(96) "@dcachopa18 i don't think so, sorry! we'll let you know if we do. what size are you looking for?"
["time"]=>
string(11) "6 hours ago"
}
[4]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/277888036237373440"
["html"]=>
string(188) "Only a few hours left! Spend $50, get a $10 gift card. Stop in or shop online. We close at 7 tonight! <a href="http://t.co/082T5jTf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/082T5jTf</a>"
["time"]=>
string(12) "23 hours ago"
}
[5]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/277786268274933760"
["html"]=>
string(135) "Here's the new Boston in-store! cc: @b3asTTw33ts <a href="http://t.co/soLoEYqv" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/soLoEYqv</a>"
["time"]=>
string(9) "yesterday"
}
[6]=>
array(3) {
["url"]=>
string(63) "http://twitter.com/#!/JHNYCPKS_Boston/status/277526406076968961"
["html"]=>
string(119) "What's everyone's favorite piece from this release?! The new Boston exclusive seems to be the hot ticket. #freshlybaked"
["time"]=>
string(9) "yesterday"
}
}
}
I have a couple ideas about what could be causing this:
Does anyone have some experience with this issue and could point me in the right direction for correcting it?
La solution
Something is going awry with the serialisation of your array; the sample encoded string you show is only a partial serialisation of your array, so it's slipped up somewhere (either in serialising, or in saving to the DB).
Maybe try serialising it yourself (call serialize()), base64-encode it, and then set the transient. On retrieval, base64-decode, and deserialise. It just might work, if the problem is with WordPress / wpdb saving the serialised array.
