Python – API.destroy_list() in Tweepy

Twitter is a popular social network where users share messages called tweets. Twitter allows us to mine the data of any user using Twitter API or Tweepy. The data will be tweets extracted from the user. The first thing to do is get the consumer key, consumer secret, access key and access secret from twitter developer available easily for each user. These keys will help the API for authentication.

API.destroy_list()

The destroy_list() method of the API class in Tweepy module is used to delete a list.

Syntax : API.destroy_list(owner_screen_name/owner_id, list_id/slug)

Parameter :

• owner_id : ID of the owner of the list.
• owner_screen_name : screen name of the owner of the list.
• list_id : ID of the list.
• slug : slug of the list, will have to also mention ownerid/owner_screen_name.

Returns : an object of class List

Example 1 :

# import the module
import tweepy

# assign the values accordingly
consumer_key = ""
consumer_secret = ""
access_token = ""
access_token_secret = ""

# authorization of consumer key and consumer secret
auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)

# set access to user's access key and access secret
auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)

# calling the api
api = tweepy.API(auth)

# the screen name of the owner of the list
owner_screen_name =

# the ID of the list
list_id =

# deleting the list
api.destroy_list(owner_screen_name, list_id = list_id)

The list is deleted.

Example 2 : Verifying whether the list is deleted or not using the get_list() method.

# the screen name of the owner of the list
owner_screen_name =

# the ID of the list
list_id = print("Before using destroy_list() method")
if api.get_list(list_id):
    print("The list exists.")

# deleting the list
api.destroy_list(owner_screen_name, list_id = list_id)

print("After using destroy_list() method")
try:
    api.get_list(list_id)
except:
    print("The list does not exists.")

Output :

Before using destroy_list() method
The list exists.
After using destroy_list() method
The list does not exists.