Introduction

Node.js module for Telegram Bot API (https://core.telegram.org/bots/api). You can use it simply as an API if you want to implement logic by yourself, or you can enable retrieving of updates and get messages sent to your bot in a callback

IMPORTANT: In version 1.0.0. promises are implemented in backward compatible way, i.e. old code (with callbacks) should also work with new version of the API

Installation

You can use npm package to get module installed

npm install telegram-bot-api

Example (simple API usage)

var telegram = require('telegram-bot-api');

var api = new telegram({
        token: '<PUT YOUR TOKEN HERE>'
});

api.getMe()
.then(function(data)
{
    console.log(data);
})
.catch(function(err)
{
	console.log(err);
});

Supported methods

For method parameters and description, please refer to official documentation https://core.telegram.org/bots/api

This module supports following methods so far:

getMe
sendMessage
forwardMessage
sendPhoto
sendAudio
sendVoice
sendDocument
sendSticker
sendVideo
sendLocation
sendVenue
sendContact
sendChatAction
getUserProfilePhotos
getUpdates
setWebhook
getFile
answerInlineQuery
answerCallbackQuery
editMessageText
editMessageCaption
editMessageReplyMarkup
kickChatMember
unbanChatMember

Retrieve messages sent to your bot

You can force this API to retrieve messages sent to your Telegram Bot. API will emit message event as soon as some message is received by your bot. Please note, that you need explicitly configure this behaviour, as it is disabled by default.

var telegram = require('telegram-bot-api');

var api = new telegram({
        token: '<PUT YOUR TOKEN HERE>',
        updates: {
        	enabled: true
    }
});

api.on('message', function(message)
{
	// Received text message
    console.log(message);
});

api.on('inline.query', function(message)
{
	// Received inline query
    console.log(message);
});

api.on('inline.result', function(message)
{
	// Received chosen inline result
    console.log(message);
});

api.on('inline.callback.query', function(message)
{
	// New incoming callback query
    console.log(message);
});

api.on('update', function(message)
{
	// Generic update object
	// Subscribe on it in case if you want to handle all possible
	// event types in one callback
    console.log(message);
});

Example (send photo)

var telegram = require('telegram-bot-api');

var api = new telegram({
	token: '<PUT YOUR TOKEN HERE>',
});

api.sendPhoto({
	chat_id: <YOUR CHAT ID>,
	caption: 'This is my test image',

	// you can also send file_id here as string (as described in telegram bot api documentation)
	photo: '/path/to/file/test.jpg'
})
.then(function(data)
{
	console.log(util.inspect(data, false, null));
});

Other examples

Please refer to /examples folder of repository.

API configuration

You should pass configuration object to API constructor, which have following fields.

Param name	Mandatory?	Description
token	Mandatory	Telegram access token (received from BotFather)
http_proxy	Optional	This object is optional. Use it in case if you want API to connect through proxy
http_proxy.host	Mandatory	Proxy hostname
http_proxy.port	Mandatory	Proxy port
http_proxy.user	Optional	Username (authentication)
http_proxy.password	Optional	Password (authentication)
http_proxy.https	Optional	Pass true if you want https used as a protocol. Default false
updates	Optional	Pass it to configure how API will handle incoming messages to your bot
updates.enabled	Optional	true – API will listen for messages and provide you with callback. false – API will not listen for messages, care about it by yourself. Default false
updates.get_interval	Optional	This number of milliseconds API will poll Telegram servers for messages. Default 1000
updates.pooling_timeout	Optional	This number of milliseconds API will keep connection with Telegram servers alive. Default 0

Example of configuration object

{
	token: '123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11',
	http_proxy: {
		host: 'proxy.example.com',
		port: 8080,
		username: 'mylogin',
		password: 'mypassword'
	},
	updates: {
		enabled: true,
		get_interval: 2000
	}
}

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Max Stepanov

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.