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Xquik-dev/x-twitter-scraper-csharp

X Twitter Scraper C# API Library

The X Twitter Scraper C# SDK provides convenient access to the X Twitter Scraper REST API from applications written in C#.

It is generated with Stainless.

The REST API documentation can be found on xquik.com.

Installation

Install the package from NuGet:

dotnet add package XTwitterScraper

Requirements

This library requires .NET Standard 2.0 or later.

Usage

See the examples directory for complete and runnable examples.

using System;
using XTwitterScraper;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.X.Tweets;

XTwitterScraperClient client = new();

TweetSearchParams parameters = new()
{
    Q = "from:elonmusk",
    Limit = 10,
};

var response = await client.X.Tweets.Search(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

Client configuration

Configure the client using environment variables:

using XTwitterScraper;

// Configured using the X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_API_KEY, X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_BEARER_TOKEN and X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_BASE_URL environment variables
XTwitterScraperClient client = new();

Or manually:

using XTwitterScraper;

XTwitterScraperClient client = new()
{
    ApiKey = "My API Key",
    BearerToken = "My Bearer Token",
};

Or using a combination of the two approaches.

See this table for the available options:

Property Environment variable Required Default value
ApiKey X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_API_KEY false -
BearerToken X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_BEARER_TOKEN false -
BaseUrl X_TWITTER_SCRAPER_BASE_URL true "https://xquik.com/api/v1"

Modifying configuration

To temporarily use a modified client configuration, while reusing the same connection and thread pools, call WithOptions on any client or service:

using System;

var response = await client
    .WithOptions(options =>
        options with
        {
            BaseUrl = "https://example.com",
            Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(42),
        }
    )
    .X.Tweets.Search(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

Using a with expression makes it easy to construct the modified options.

The WithOptions method does not affect the original client or service.

Requests and responses

To send a request to the X Twitter Scraper API, build an instance of some Params class and pass it to the corresponding client method. When the response is received, it will be deserialized into an instance of a C# class.

For example, client.X.Tweets.Search should be called with an instance of TweetSearchParams, and it will return an instance of Task<TweetSearchResponse>.

Binary responses

The SDK defines methods that return binary responses, which are used for API responses that shouldn't necessarily be parsed, like non-JSON data.

These methods return HttpResponse:

using System;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.Extractions;

ExtractionExportResultsParams parameters = new() { ID = "id" };

var response = await client.Extractions.ExportResults(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

To save the response content to a file, or any Stream, use the CopyToAsync method:

using System.IO;

using var response = await client.Extractions.ExportResults(parameters);
using var contentStream = await response.ReadAsStream();
using var fileStream = File.Open(path, FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
await contentStream.CopyToAsync(fileStream); // Or any other Stream

Raw responses

The SDK defines methods that deserialize responses into instances of C# classes. However, these methods don't provide access to the response headers, status code, or the raw response body.

To access this data, prefix any HTTP method call on a client or service with WithRawResponse:

var response = await client.WithRawResponse.X.Tweets.Search(parameters);
var statusCode = response.StatusCode;
var headers = response.Headers;

The raw HttpResponseMessage can also be accessed through the RawMessage property.

For non-streaming responses, you can deserialize the response into an instance of a C# class if needed:

using System;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.X.Tweets;

var response = await client.WithRawResponse.X.Tweets.Search(parameters);
TweetSearchResponse deserialized = await response.Deserialize();
Console.WriteLine(deserialized);

Error handling

The SDK throws custom unchecked exception types:

  • XTwitterScraperApiException: Base class for API errors. See this table for which exception subclass is thrown for each HTTP status code:
Status Exception
400 XTwitterScraperBadRequestException
401 XTwitterScraperUnauthorizedException
403 XTwitterScraperForbiddenException
404 XTwitterScraperNotFoundException
422 XTwitterScraperUnprocessableEntityException
429 XTwitterScraperRateLimitException
5xx XTwitterScraper5xxException
others XTwitterScraperUnexpectedStatusCodeException

Additionally, all 4xx errors inherit from XTwitterScraper4xxException.

  • XTwitterScraperIOException: I/O networking errors.

  • XTwitterScraperInvalidDataException: Failure to interpret successfully parsed data. For example, when accessing a property that's supposed to be required, but the API unexpectedly omitted it from the response.

  • XTwitterScraperException: Base class for all exceptions.

Network options

Retries

The SDK automatically retries 2 times by default, with a short exponential backoff between requests.

Only the following error types are retried:

  • Connection errors (for example, due to a network connectivity problem)
  • 408 Request Timeout
  • 409 Conflict
  • 429 Rate Limit
  • 5xx Internal

The API may also explicitly instruct the SDK to retry or not retry a request.

To set a custom number of retries, configure the client using the MaxRetries method:

using XTwitterScraper;

XTwitterScraperClient client = new() { MaxRetries = 3 };

Or configure a single method call using WithOptions:

using System;

var response = await client
    .WithOptions(options =>
        options with { MaxRetries = 3 }
    )
    .X.Tweets.Search(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

Timeouts

Requests time out after 1 minute by default.

To set a custom timeout, configure the client using the Timeout option:

using System;
using XTwitterScraper;

XTwitterScraperClient client = new() { Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(42) };

Or configure a single method call using WithOptions:

using System;

var response = await client
    .WithOptions(options =>
        options with { Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(42) }
    )
    .X.Tweets.Search(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

Proxies

To route requests through a proxy, configure your client with a custom HttpClient:

using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using XTwitterScraper;

var httpClient = new HttpClient
(
    new HttpClientHandler
    {
        Proxy = new WebProxy("https://example.com:8080")
    }
);

XTwitterScraperClient client = new() { HttpClient = httpClient };

Undocumented API functionality

The SDK is typed for convenient usage of the documented API. However, it also supports working with undocumented or not yet supported parts of the API.

Parameters

To set undocumented parameters, a constructor exists that accepts dictionaries for additional header, query, and body values. If the method type doesn't support request bodies (e.g. GET requests), the constructor will only accept a header and query dictionary.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text.Json;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.X.Tweets;

TweetSearchParams parameters = new
(
    rawHeaderData: new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>()
    {
        { "Custom-Header", JsonSerializer.SerializeToElement(42) }
    },

    rawQueryData: new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>()
    {
        { "custom_query_param", JsonSerializer.SerializeToElement(42) }
    }
)
{
    // Documented properties can still be added here.
    // In case of conflict, these parameters take precedence over the custom parameters.
    Limit = 200
};

The raw parameters can also be accessed through the RawHeaderData, RawQueryData, and RawBodyData (if available) properties.

This can also be used to set a documented parameter to an undocumented or not yet supported value, as long as the parameter is optional. If the parameter is required, omitting its init property will result in a compile-time error. To work around this, the FromRawUnchecked method can be used:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text.Json;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.X.Tweets;

var parameters = TweetSearchParams.FromRawUnchecked
(

    rawHeaderData: new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>(),
    rawQueryData: new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>
    {
        {
            "q",
            JsonSerializer.SerializeToElement("custom value")
        }
    }
);

Nested Parameters

Undocumented properties, or undocumented values of documented properties, on nested parameters can be set similarly, using a dictionary in the constructor of the nested parameter.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text.Json;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.Integrations;

IntegrationCreateParams parameters = new()
{
    Config = new
    (
        new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>
        {
            { "custom_nested_param", JsonSerializer.SerializeToElement(42) }
        }
    )
};

Required properties on the nested parameter can also be changed or omitted using the FromRawUnchecked method:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text.Json;
using XTwitterScraper.Models.Integrations;

IntegrationCreateParams parameters = new()
{
    Config = Config.FromRawUnchecked
    (
        new Dictionary<string, JsonElement>
        {
            { "required_property", JsonSerializer.SerializeToElement("custom value") }
        }
    )
};

Response properties

To access undocumented response properties, the RawData property can be used:

using System.Text.Json;

var response = client.X.Tweets.Search(parameters)
if (response.RawData.TryGetValue("my_custom_key", out JsonElement value))
{
    // Do something with `value`
}

RawData is a IReadonlyDictionary<string, JsonElement>. It holds the full data received from the API server.

Response validation

In rare cases, the API may return a response that doesn't match the expected type. For example, the SDK may expect a property to contain a string, but the API could return something else.

By default, the SDK will not throw an exception in this case. It will throw XTwitterScraperInvalidDataException only if you directly access the property.

If you would prefer to check that the response is completely well-typed upfront, then either call Validate:

var response = client.X.Tweets.Search(parameters);
response.Validate();

Or configure the client using the ResponseValidation option:

using XTwitterScraper;

XTwitterScraperClient client = new() { ResponseValidation = true };

Or configure a single method call using WithOptions:

using System;

var response = await client
    .WithOptions(options =>
        options with { ResponseValidation = true }
    )
    .X.Tweets.Search(parameters);

Console.WriteLine(response);

Semantic versioning

This package generally follows SemVer conventions, though certain backwards-incompatible changes may be released as minor versions:

  1. Changes to library internals which are technically public but not intended or documented for external use. (Please open a GitHub issue to let us know if you are relying on such internals.)
  2. Changes that we do not expect to impact the vast majority of users in practice.

We take backwards-compatibility seriously and work hard to ensure you can rely on a smooth upgrade experience.

We are keen for your feedback; please open an issue with questions, bugs, or suggestions.