Implementation
The Realboy interfaces are all written in Python, and Realboy uses a MySQL database backend. Realboy relies on two Python libraries: Python-igraph and Python-twitter. Python-igraph is a library for creating, manipulating, and drawing graphs. Python-igraph also has methods for finding communities in social graphs. Python-twitter is a library for interacting with the Twitter API and doing such things as tweeting, friending, getting lists of friends, etc.
These are the Realboy interfaces:
friend_finder.py
friend_finder.py searches the Twitter social graph and stores users and edges that it finds.
Example: python friend_finder.py -d 3 -s gregmarra
Searches starting with the username "gregmarra" and recursively finds friendships three levels deep.
Example: python friend_finder.py -d 3 -f
Searches starting with any user and recursively finds friendships three levels deep, then repeats with another unexplored user.
twitter_friend_graph.py
twitter_friend_graph.py uses igraph to find communities within the friend graph. Each community gets a unique number.
tweet_finder.py
tweet_finder.py downloads and stores tweets.
Example: python tweet_finder.py -s gregmarra -d 3
Downloads and stores tweets from a seed user ("gregmarra") and then recursively does the same for his friends three levels deep.
realboy_setup.py
realboy_setup.py describes a group and lets you associate a Realboy with it.
Example: python realboy_setup.py -g 0
Describes group 0 and lets you to attach a Realboy.
realboy.py
realboy.py does tweeting and friending. realboy.py should be run periodically by cron.
Example: python realboy.py -r robotboston -a
Tweets as robotboston and friends people from robotboston's social graph.