Spring Integration with Twitter: How to Send Direct Message [DM] to a Twitter Account?

What is Twitter DM?

A direct message (DM) is a private message sent via Twitter to one of your followers. You can only send a direct message to a user who is following you; you can only receive direct messages from users you follow.

Spring Configuration

Spring Twitter Outbound Adapter provides support for send a DM to a Twitter account. This will send a private message to a specific user who is a follower. This configuration is similar to the one that we have seen in my previous post on Spring Twitter Update Adapter.

twitter-dm-outbound.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:int="http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:twitter="http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration/twitter"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration/twitter
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration/twitter/spring-integration-twitter.xsd
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/integration/spring-integration.xsd
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
 
 
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">
 
    <context:property-placeholder location="/twitter.properties" />
 
    <context:component-scan base-package="com.skilledmonster.spring.integration.twitter" />
 
    <int:channel id="twitterOutbound" />
 
    <twitter:dm-outbound-channel-adapter
        channel="twitterOutbound" twitter-template="twitterTemplate" />
 
</beans>

Test Run
In order to send a DM to a Twitter Account using the below test class, you need to set the target user through the header TwitterHeaders.DM_TARGET_USER_ID. The below test code sets the header value to send a DM to Twitter Account # @SkilledMonster

package com.skilledmonster.spring.integration.twitter;
 
import java.util.Calendar;
 
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.integration.Message;
import org.springframework.integration.MessageChannel;
import org.springframework.integration.support.MessageBuilder;
import org.springframework.integration.twitter.core.TwitterHeaders;
 
/**
 * Send a DM to Twitter Account
 * @author Jagadeesh
 */
public class TwitterDMOutbound {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
         ClassPathXmlApplicationContext context = new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(
                    "/twitter-dm-outbound.xml", TwitterDMOutbound.class);
 
            MessageChannel input = context.getBean("twitterOutbound", MessageChannel.class);
            Message<String> message = MessageBuilder.withPayload(Calendar.getInstance().getTime()+ " Direct Message posted using Spring Integration Module")
                    .setHeader(TwitterHeaders.DM_TARGET_USER_ID, "SkilledMonster").build();
            input.send(message);
            context.stop();
    }
}

Output

Here is a snapshot of the DM received from @SkilledTester to @SkilledMonster
 
References:

Twitter Support