php - How To Obtain All Twitter Followers Without Hitting API Limit -

i imagine it's pretty easy do, can't figure out i'm doing wrong. i'm using abraham's oauth gain access. i'm building database follower's information: screen name, user name , twitter id. nothing special.

i referenced twitter's "cursoring" page, pseudo code, make code. don't want click link see said pesudo code, looks following:

cursor = -1  api_path = "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/endpoint.json?screen_name=targetuser"  {      url_with_cursor = api_path + "&cursor=" + cursor            response_dictionary = perform_http_get_request_for_url( url_with_cursor )      cursor = response_dictionary[ 'next_cursor' ]  }  while ( cursor != 0 ) 

with every request, end user gets "cursor" allows them navigate through "pages" of results. each page holds 20, , if have 200 followers have go through 10 pages. have on 900 followers. modified following:

 include('config.php');  //db connection  include('twitter_oauth.php'); //oauth connection   $followers = "";  $cursor = -1; echo '<pre>';    {      $consumerkey = 'xxx';     $consumersecret = 'xxx';     $oauthtoken = 'xxx';     $oauthsecret = 'xxx';      $tweet = new twitteroauth($consumerkey, $consumersecret, $oauthtoken, $oauthsecret);      $followers = $tweet->get('followers/list', array('screen_name' => 'my_screen_name', 'cursor' => $cursor));      print_r($followers);      if (isset($followers->error)) {         echo $followers->next_cursor_str;         break;     }       foreach($followers->users $users) {          $followersq = mysql_query("select * followers tw_id = '".$users->id."'") or die(mysql_error());         $num_rows = mysql_num_rows($followersq);          if ($num_rows == 0) {             $followersq2 = "insert followers                                          (screen_name, name, tw_id)                                         values                                         ('".$users->screen_name."', '".$users->name."', '".$users->id."')";             $followersr = mysql_query($followersq2) or die(mysql_error());             echo 'done 1 set<br>';         }      }       $cursor = $followers->next_cursor_str;  }  while ( $cursor != 0 ); echo '</pre>';  ?> 

the above code calls twitter followers/list , gets first 20 users. gets cursor , goes next one, , repeats. only, seems after 80 users gives me lovely:

[errors] => array     (         [0] => stdclass object             (                 [message] => rate limit exceeded                 [code] => 88             )      ) 

i manually next cursor, wait 15 minutes rate limit go down, call function again cursor, next 80 items, key , repeat, want set script can call on , over.

i feel i'm doing wrong, either function call oauth, or outside of somewhere. can point me in right direction?

thank you.

this way faster, there's limitation concerns :

1- make request followers ids ... paging 5000 id in page https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/followers/ids

2- loop on ids , send each 100 id in comma separated string info https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/users/lookup

3- u can 1500 user object instead of 300 user object every 15 minutes

but need set timer every 15 request in case followers list more 1500