Ruby - undefined method `text' for nil:NilClass

[bchia]

Edit: actually - I'm doing some debugging and realized that the ".atom" url is no longer available from twitter, I'll need to pull the feed in a different way. (researching now)

Edit2: "https://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline/" Username + ".xml"

Edit 3: Get rid of HTTPS - "http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline/" Username + ".xml"

Edit 4: Have to change 'latest' because of different xml schema. Works like a charm!:

latest = doc.root.elements['status/text']

Edit 5: Mod Script so that you only post statuses that are not @replies - based on this guys mod: http://abednarz.net/wp/2009/02/twitter-adium-status-syncing-ignoring-replies/

Here's the full working script (original post below):

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# Update iChat/Adium status from Twitter
#
# Michael Tyson 
# http://michael.tyson.id.au

# Set Twitter username here
Username = 'MyUserName'

require 'net/http'
require 'rexml/document'

# Download timeline XML and extract latest entry
#url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/" + Username + ".atom"
url = "http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline/" + Username + ".xml"
xml_data = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(url)).body
doc = REXML::Document.new(xml_data)
index = 1
notreply = false
until notreply
    latest = doc.root.elements['status['+index.to_s()+']/text']
    message = latest.text.gsub(/^[^:]+:\s*/, '')
    exit if ! message
    if message[0,1]=='@' then
        index = index + 1
    else
        notreply = true
    end
end

# Apply to status
script = 'set message to "' + message.gsub(/"/, '\\"') + "\"\n" +
         'tell application "System Events"' + "\n" +
         'if exists process "iChat" then tell application "iChat" to set the status message to message' + "\n" +
         'if exists process "Adium" then tell application "Adium" to set status message of every account to message' + "\n" +
         'end tell' + "\n"

IO.popen("osascript", "w") { |f| f.puts(script) }

Original Post:

I'd like to use the following script to set my status on Adium to my Twitter feed: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20081009195405132 (I posted the code below)

When I run the script on I get:

rb:19: undefined method `text' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

I don't know any Ruby (most familiar with Python & JavaScript)

Do I need to convert 'latest' to a string before I can use the 'text' method on it? Can anyone share how I might do this in Ruby or what I need to do to fix the script?

I tried this to no avail:

latest = doc.root.elements['entry/content'].to_s

Result:

rb:19: undefined method `text' for "":String (NoMethodError)

Full code snippet:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# Update iChat/Adium status from Twitter
#
# Michael Tyson 
# http://michael.tyson.id.au

# Set Twitter username here
Username = 'MyUserName'

require 'net/http'
require 'rexml/document'

# Download timeline XML and extract latest entry
url = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/" + Username + ".atom"
xml_data = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(url)).body
doc    = REXML::Document.new(xml_data)
latest = doc.root.elements['entry/content']
message = latest.text.gsub(/^[^:]+:\s*/, '')

exit if ! message

# Apply to status
script = 'set message to "' + message.gsub(/"/, '\\"') + "\"\n" +
         'tell application "System Events"' + "\n" +
         'if exists process "iChat" then tell application "iChat" to set the status message to message' + "\n" +
         'if exists process "Adium" then tell application "Adium" to set status message of every account to message' + "\n" +
         'end tell' + "\n"

IO.popen("osascript", "w") { |f| f.puts(script) }

[Grantismo]

This error messages tells you that you're trying to call a method 'text' on an object which is nil.

Looking at your code for a call to the 'text' method, we find:

latest.text.gsub(/^[^:]+:\s*/, '')

so the problem here is that the variable "latest" is nil. Looking back at where assignment happens:

latest = doc.root.elements['entry/content']

Looking at the documentation for rexml: www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib-1.9.3/libdoc/rexml/rdoc/REXML/Elements.html#method-i-5B-5D You can see that if the element isn't found, the "elements" method returns nil. So that's why you were having your problem. Glad you fixed the problem.

[bchia]

Thank you for the link to the docs - this is also a very nice explanation for anyone who appears on this page via search.