tweet_compressor

The copyright for the software, documentation, and associated files are held by the author.

Copyright 2013 Todd A. Jacobs
All rights reserved.

The AUTHORS file is also included in the source tree.

Software License

GPLv3 Logo

The software is licensed under the GPLv3. The LICENSE file is also included in the source tree.

README License

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA Logo

This README is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Purpose

tweet_compressor is Ruby gem that performs successive text transformations in order to shrink input text below Twitter's 140-character limit while preserving the integrity of hashtags and links.

Features

  • Treats hashtags as sacrosanct.
  • Relies on Twitter to shorten URLs for you, counting URLs as 20 characters.
  • Skips shortening stages whenever the character length drops below 140.
  • Remains vaguely intelligible even under heavy compression.

Caveats and Limitations

  1. The gem performs text transformations; it's not a full parser.
  2. Some of the transformations may be naive or rely on brute force to get the job done. YMMV.
  3. No sanity checking is performed on the semantics of the output text. It Works for Me™, but it's not a substitute for applying common sense and a keen eye to your tweets before posting on Twitter.
  4. Works best when you only need to trim a handful of characters. If you're vastly over the limit, readability suffers as compression gets tighter.

Supported Software Versions

This software is tested against the current Ruby 2.x series. It is unlikely to work without minor editing on 1.9.3, and you're on your own for anything earlier than 1.9.1.

  • See .ruby-version for the currently-supported Ruby versions.
  • See Gemfile.lock for a complete list of gems, including supported versions, needed to build or run this project.

Installation and Setup

Installing tweet_compressor couldn't be easier. Just follow these two simple steps:

  1. gem install tweet_compressor
  2. There is no step two.

Usage

tweet_compressor <tweet>

Examples

No screenshots here, just samples of what you can expect to see on standard output when you run the program.

  • Example of text that requires no compression.

    $ tweet_compressor foo
Chars: 3, Compression: 0.0%

foo

  • Example of extremely heavy compression. Trims 196 characters about the Gettysburg Address down to 137.

    $ tweet_compressor 'Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
#speech #Lincoln'                                                            
Chars: 137, Compression: 28.65%

4 scr &7 yrs ago our fthrs brght frth on ths cntnt a new ntn,cncvd
in lbrty,& dctd to the prpstn tht al men are crtd eql.#speech
#Lincoln

  • Example of assumed compression from Twitter's built-in URL shortener.

    $ tweet_compressor 'http://tweet_compressor/knows/twitter/shortens/urls/to/20/characters'
Chars: 20, Compression: 70.59%

http://tweet_compressor/knows/twitter/shortens/urls/to/20/characters

Contributions Welcome

This is an open-source project. Contributors are highly encouraged to open pull-requests on GitHub.

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