#!/usr/bin/perl

# A Perl proof-of-concept written by Adam Lawson.

# This is a simple command line twitter status updating script for Perl.
# There is nothing fancy here, just a straight posting mechanism.

# Upon calling cURL, if you screwed something up (usually user name or password),
# you'll notice that nothing uploaded.

# Below is an example of an UNSUCCESSFUL attempt to post:
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
#                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
# 100   141  100   141    0     0    633      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Note how Total Time, Time Spent, and Current Speed are blank or 0.

# Below is an example of an successful attempt to post:
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
#                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
# 100  1788  100  1788    0     0    745      0  0:00:02  0:00:02 --:--:--  1342
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Note how Total Time, Time Spent, and Current Speed are NOT blank or 0.

# These are functions the return from cURL, so I can't take credit for it.

# Other than the vanilla installation of Perl, we are relying
# on the Term::ReadKey module (available from CPAN, but likely
# already installed) and the cURL library (which depends on your
# distro, but can be obtained from http://curl.haxx.se/ if you
# need it). You may also need/want to "chmod a+x tweet" so you
# can execute this script by simply typing "./tweet". That makes
# things much simpler. Ok, enough jibba jabba -- on with the show!

use Term::ReadKey;                  # Include this module so we can hide the password.

print "What are you doing?\n";      # Prompt for status.
chomp($status = <STDIN>);           # Collect status into a scalar and chomp it.

print "What is your user name?\n";  # Prompt for user name.
chomp($user_name = <STDIN>);        # Collect user name into a scalar and chomp it.

print "What is your password?\n";   # Prompt for password.
ReadMode 2;                         # Turn off screen updating (accomplished by including the Term::ReadKey module).
chomp($password = <STDIN>);         # Collect the password into a scalar and chomp it.
ReadMode 0;                         # Turn screen updating back on.

print "Posting to Twitter...\n";    # Prompt that we are prepared to begin the posting script.

# Build a scalar in the proper cURL syntax and drop in the other variables where appropriate.
$post_string = "curl -u " . $user_name . ":" . $password . " -d status=\"" . $status . "\" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml";

# Execute the command created by our string, which will tell call cURL and post it to Twitter!
`$post_string`;