Hey Craig,
We found an addition to this. Your regex is great, but it doesn't
limit the length of screen names. Twitter doesn't allow signups
greater than 15 chars (but in tweets, it will actually link up to 20
chars).
So, @abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz will be linked out to
@abcdefghijklmnopqrst
\...@[\w\d_]{1,15}
This also works in Ruby.
-- Tim
On May 12, 2:01 pm, "ericdoesdot...@gmail.com"
<ericdoesdot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> In .NET, I use the regex: \...@[\w\d_]+
>
> This pattern exhibits the behavior described by Doug -- it finds the
> mentions @bob, @BOB, ....@bob and -...@bob, but not _...@bob and h...@bob.
>
> I sent the following tweet:
>
> `...@a ~...@a !...@a @@a #...@a $...@a %...@a ^...@a &@a *...@a (@a )@a
> _...@a +...@a -...@a =...@a [...@a
> {...@a ]...@a }...@a \...@a |@a ;@a :@a '@a "@a ,@a <@a ....@a >@a /@a ?...@a
> a...@a 1...@a
>
> Twitter and my pattern both did not match "_...@a" and "a...@a" and "1...@a".
>
> On May 12, 8:13 am, CaMason <stasisme...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > It looks like they're simply applying this regex as a test:
>
> > (?<![\w])@username(?![\w])
>
> > Thus, if a character on either side is not (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _) then it
> > is a mention. any 'word' character (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _) on either side
> > of '@screenname' causes the mention to fail.
>
> > (I hope I got the regex explanation correct!).
>
> > -Craig
>
> > On May 12, 12:33 pm, hjb <ha...@heatonmoor.com> wrote:
>
> > > @Doug,
>
> > > Is this behavour likely to remain? ( I noticed that ....@replies and -
> > > @replies are successful )
>
> > > That is to say, I'm sure @replies will work at some point via sms, but
> > > can we rely on the fact that _...@replies do not? Is this related to
> > > there being any chance of it being an email address?
>
> > > Thanks,
>
> > > Harry
>
> > > On May 11, 6:26 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote:
>
> > > > In my test posts &@dougw and @DOUGW worked as mentions. t...@dougw and
> > > > _...@dougw were not included as mentions.
>
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Doug
> > > > --
>
> > > > Doug Williams
> > > > Twitter Platform Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw
>
> > > > On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:16 AM, CaMason
> > > > <stasisme...@googlemail.com>wrote:
>
> > > > > Thanks Doug, that's a great help.
>
> > > > > How about preceding?
>
> > > > > i.e. should "t...@dougw", "_...@dougw" or "&@dougw" create mentions?
> > > > > The
> > > > > main concern here obviously is email addresses.
>
> > > > > And finally, are screen names case sensitive? :)
>
> > > > > Cheers
>
> > > > > On May 11, 6:07 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote:
> > > > > > The classic definition of an @reply is any tweet that starts with
> > > > > > @user.
> > > > > If
> > > > > > you perfrom a to:user (e.g. to:dougw) query at search.twitter.com
> > > > > > you
> > > > > will
> > > > > > only get @replies. @replies were converted to mentions after we
> > > > > > realized
> > > > > > people didn't just @reply. Mentions are any tweet that contain @user
> > > > > within
> > > > > > the text of the tweet.
>
> > > > > > So @replies are a subset of mentions.
>
> > > > > > Any non-alphanumeric (where alphanumeric is a-z, 0-9, or _) can
> > > > > > terminate
> > > > > > the username. For instance: "hi @dougw, you look dapper today" is a
> > > > > mention.
>
> > > > > > Thanks,
> > > > > > Doug
> > > > > > --
>
> > > > > > Doug Williams
> > > > > > Twitter Platform Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw
>
> > > > > > On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 2:36 AM, stasisme...@googlemail.com <
>
> > > > > > stasisme...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > Hi guys,
>
> > > > > > > For an application I'm working on, we have a single table for
> > > > > > > 'tweets'
> > > > > > > and another for DMs. We're linking TwitterUsers to Tweets with a
> > > > > > > many:many, and a simple flag to specify if the tweet is a reply/
> > > > > > > mention.
>
> > > > > > > We first pull in messages from the user_timeline feed, then the
> > > > > > > mentions feed. As such, we'd like to check if any of the messages
> > > > > > > in
> > > > > > > user_timeline feed is actually a reply.
>
> > > > > > > Could anybody clarify the exact rules that are used to determine
> > > > > > > whether a string is a reply/mention?
>
> > > > > > > i.e.
> > > > > > > preceded by start-of-string or non-word character...
> > > > > > > followed by space, comma, period or end of message...
> > > > > > > case insensitive...
> > > > > > > [not even sure if these are correct! :) ]
>
> > > > > > > Currently I'm using:
>
> > > > > > > /(?<![^\W_])@%s(?![^\W_])/i
>
> > > > > > > with %s replaced by the user's screen name. Perhaps one of the
> > > > > > > devs
> > > > > > > could share the exact rules (or even the regex), or propose a
> > > > > > > nicer
> > > > > > > mechanism for detecting replies.
>
> > > > > > > (I did propose checking for replies before tweets, but these
> > > > > > > update
> > > > > > > threads are run asynchronously).
>
> > > > > > > Cheers- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
>
