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Python code to search tweets in twitter

Recently I wrote a code to search keywords in twitter and extract the tweets as a part of a larger program. It uses twitter search api. I guess some of you might find this code snippet useful. :)

 import requests  
 import sys  
 import time  
 from datetime import datetime  
   
   
   
 def store_tweets(keyword, results, max_id):  
   tweet_list = []  
     
   for item in results:  
     tweet_id = item['id_str']  
     tweet_text = item['text'].encode('utf-8', 'ignore')  
     if len(tweet_text) > 255:  
       tweet_text = tweet_text[0:255]  
     from_user = item['from_user'].encode('utf-8', 'ignore')  
     from_user_id = item['from_user_id']  
     from_user_name = item['from_user_name'].encode('utf-8', 'ignore')  
     profile_image = item['profile_image_url'].encode('utf-8', 'ignore')  
     created_at = datetime.strptime(item['created_at'][:-6], "%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S")  
       
     tweet_list.append((keyword, tweet_id, tweet_text, from_user, from_user_id, from_user_name, profile_image, created_at))  
       
   # Now store the tweet list in a database or file  
   return  
   
   
   
 def search_tweets(keyword, max_id = '', result_type = 'mixed'):  
   url = 'http://search.twitter.com/search.json'  
     
   params = {'q': keyword, 'rpp': '100'}  
     
   if len(max_id) > 0:  
     params['since_id'] = max_id  
       
   params['result_type'] = result_type  
   r = requests.get(url, params=params)  
   time.sleep(5)  
     
   if r.status_code != 200:  
     print r.status_code  
     print r.text  
     time.sleep(30)  
     return r.status_code  
   
   json_content = r.json  
     
   max_id = json_content['max_id_str']  
     
   while True:  
     results = json_content['results']  
     if len(results) == 0:  
       print "no result"  
       break  
         
     store_tweets(keyword, results, max_id)  
       
     if 'next_page' in json_content.keys():  
       next_page = json_content['next_page']  
     else:  
       break  
       
     r = requests.get(url + next_page)  
     time.sleep(5)  
     print r.status_code  
     if r.status_code != 200:  
       print r.status_code  
       print r.text  
       time.sleep(30)  
       return r.status_code  
   
     json_content = r.json  
       
     
     
 if __name__ == "__main__" :  
   keyword = 'python'  
   search_tweets(keyword)