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Interact with the mastodon API from R. Get
started by reading vignette("rtoot").
Please cite this package as:
Schoch, D. & Chan, C-h., (2023). Rtoot: Collecting and Analyzing Mastodon Data. Mobile Media & Communication, https://doi.org/10.1177/20501579231176678.
For a BibTeX entry, use the output from
citation("rtoot").
To get the current released version from CRAN:
install.packages("rtoot")You can install the development version of rtoot from GitHub:
remotes::install_github("gesistsa/rtoot")First you should set up your own credentials (see also
vignette("auth"))
auth_setup()The mastodon API allows different access levels. Setting up a token with your own account grants you the most access.
In contrast to twitter, mastodon is not a single instance, but a
federation of different servers. You sign up at a specific server (say
“mastodon.social”) but can still communicate with others from other
servers (say “fosstodon.org”). The existence of different instances
makes API calls more complex. For example, some calls can only be made
within your own instance (e.g get_timeline_home()), others
can access all instances but you need to specify the instance as a
parameter (e.g. get_timeline_public()).
A list of active instances can be obtained with
get_fedi_instances(). The results are sorted by number of
users.
General information about an instance can be obtained with
get_instance_general()
get_instance_general(instance = "mastodon.social")get_instance_activity() shows the activity for the last
three months and get_instance_trends() the trending
hashtags of the week.
get_instance_activity(instance = "mastodon.social")
get_instance_trends(instance = "mastodon.social")To get the most recent toots of a specific instance use
get_timeline_public()
get_timeline_public(instance = "mastodon.social")To get the most recent toots containing a specific hashtag use
get_timeline_hashtag()
get_timeline_hashtag(hashtag = "rstats", instance = "mastodon.social")The function get_timeline_home() allows you to get the
most recent toots from your own timeline.
get_timeline_home()rtoot exposes several account level endpoints. Most
require the account id instead of the username as an input. There is, to
our knowledge, no straightforward way of obtaining the account id. With
the package you can get the id via search_accounts().
search_accounts("schochastics")(Future versions will allow to use the username and user id interchangeably)
Using the id, you can get the followers and following users with
get_account_followers() and
get_account_following() and statuses with
get_account_statuses().
id <- "109302436954721982"
get_account_followers(id)
get_account_following(id)
get_account_statuses(id)You can post toots with:
post_toot(status = "my first rtoot #rstats")It can also include media and alt_text.
post_toot(
status = "my first rtoot #rstats", media = "path/to/media",
alt_text = "description of media"
)You can mark the toot as sensitive by setting
sensitive = TRUE and add a spoiler text with
spoiler_text.
(Be aware that excessive automated posting is frowned upon (or even against the ToS) in many instances. Make sure to check the ToS of your instance and be mindful when using this function.)
rtoot allows to stream statuses from three different
streams. To get any public status on any instance use
stream_timeline_public()
stream_timeline_public(timeout = 30, file_name = "public.json")the timeout parameter is the time in seconds data should be streamed
(set to Inf for indefinite streaming). If just the local
timeline is needed, use local=TRUE and set an instance (or
use your own provided by the token).
stream_timeline_hashtag() streams all statuses
containing a specific hashtag
stream_timeline_hashtag("rstats", timeout = 30, file_name = "rstats_public.json")The statuses are directly written to file as json. The function
parse_stream() can be used to read in and convert a json to
a data frame.
All relevant functions in the package support pagination of results
if the limit parameter is larger than the default page size
(which is 40 in most cases). In this case, you may get more results than
requested since the pages are always fetched as a whole. If you for
example request 70 records, you will get 80 back, given that many
records exist.
Please note that the rtoot project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.
These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.