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6. Sending Messages

Creating a Bot Account

First, we need to have a telegram account (bot) to access. Talk to @Botfather, a telegram bot by telegram to create telegram bots, to create a bot. Copy and paste the HTTP API somewhere.1

@botfather

You will also need to know your own telegram user ID, so the bot knows who to send messages to. Talk to @userinfobot to get this information. Once again, copy this information down somewhere.

@userinfobot

Finally, before we start writing code, we have to /start our bot. Open up a private message with your bot by searching its username, then hit the start button. Don't worry, nothing's supposed to happen.

Your bot

Sending a Message, Part 1

Now, let's write our program. In the first few lines, we need to import the telegram library, and store our HTTP API and user ID in some variables.

import telegram

api_key = '<your api key here>'
user_id = '<your user id here>'

Now, we need to store a representation of the telegram bot into a variable. After this, we will be able to use that variable to tell our bot what to do. Use the Bot method of the telegram library like so, passing the HTTP API api_key as argument2.

bot = telegram.Bot(token=api_key)

Finally, we are ready to send a message from our bot. Use the send_message method, with appropriate arguments to tell the bot where to send the message to (chat_id), and what to say (text).

bot.send_message(chat_id=user_id, text='USP-Python has started up!')

Save your file, and run the program.

Sent!

Don't be intimidated by these methods! They work like functions do:

  • They have a name, such as telegram.Bot, or bot.send_message3
  • They have rounded brackets right after their name...
  • and within these brackets are arguments such as chat_id=user_id

The only difference is that we must use the argument_name=argument_value notation.4

Checkpoint

If your program doesn't seem to work, check that it looks something like this:

import telegram

api_key = '<your api key here>'
user_id = '<your user id here>'

bot = telegram.Bot(token=api_key)
bot.send_message(chat_id=user_id, text='USP-Python has started up!')

Take note of the error message, particularly which line the error originates from. Then, compare that line in your program to a matching line above. Are there any differences? If so, what are the differences exactly? Amend your program so the lines match. Did that fix the error? If it did, why?

If your program works, leave it as it is---it doesn't have to be an exact match!

Questions & Exercises

  1. What is the type of api_key and user_id?
    They are strings.
  2. Modify your program so that it sends a second message of your liking.
  3. Modify your program so that it sends a message to someone else.

  1. And keep it private! This is analogous to a password---anyone with this string of characters can access your bot. ↩

  2. Methods are similar to functions. We are in fact using the Bot method (function) to construct a Bot object, which we store in the variable bot. This Bot object further has methods which will allow us to do things like send messages, photos, videos... ↩

  3. Or, the Bot method of the module telegram, and send_message of the object bot, if you want to be technically precise. ↩

  4. We have been using positional arguments. These are keyword arguments. Read more? ↩