pyTelegramBotAPI

A simple, but extensible Python implementation for the Telegram Bot API.

• Getting started.
• Writing your first bot
  • Prerequisites
  • A simple echo bot
• General API Documentation
  • Types
  • Methods
  • General use of the API
    • Message handlers
    • Callback Query handlers
    • TeleBot
    • Reply markup
    • Inline Mode
• Advanced use of the API
  • Asynchronous delivery of messages
  • Sending large text messages
  • Controlling the amount of Threads used by TeleBot
  • The listener mechanism
  • Using web hooks
  • Logging
  • Proxy
• F.A.Q.
  • Bot 2.0
  • How can I distinguish a User and a GroupChat in message.chat?
• The Telegram Chat Group
• More examples
• Bots using this API

Getting started.

This API is tested with Python 2.6, Python 2.7, Python 3.4, Pypy and Pypy 3. There are two ways to install the library:

• Installation using pip (a Python package manager)*:

$ pip install pyTelegramBotAPI

• Installation from source (requires git):

$ git clone https://github.com/eternnoir/pyTelegramBotAPI.git
$ cd pyTelegramBotAPI
$ python setup.py install

It is generally recommended to use the first option.

*While the API is production-ready, it is still under development and it has regular updates, do not forget to update it regularly by calling pip install pytelegrambotapi --upgrade

Writing your first bot

Prerequisites

It is presumed that you have obtained an API token with @BotFather. We will call this token TOKEN. Furthermore, you have basic knowledge of the Python programming language and more importantly the Telegram Bot API.

A simple echo bot

The TeleBot class (defined in _init_.py) encapsulates all API calls in a single class. It provides functions such as send_xyz (send_message, send_document etc.) and several ways to listen for incoming messages.

Create a file called echo_bot.py. Then, open the file and create an instance of the TeleBot class.

import telebot

bot = telebot.TeleBot("TOKEN")

Note: Make sure to actually replace TOKEN with your own API token.

After that declaration, we need to register some so-called message handlers. Message handlers define filters which a message must pass. If a message passes the filter, the decorated function is called and the incoming message is passed as an argument.

Let's define a message handler which handles incoming /start and /help commands.

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def send_welcome(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "Howdy, how are you doing?")

A function which is decorated by a message handler can have an arbitrary name, however, it must have only one parameter (the message).

Let's add another handler:

@bot.message_handler(func=lambda m: True)
def echo_all(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, message.text)

This one echoes all incoming text messages back to the sender. It uses a lambda function to test a message. If the lambda returns True, the message is handled by the decorated function. Since we want all messages to be handled by this function, we simply always return True.

Note: all handlers are tested in the order in which they were declared

We now have a basic bot which replies a static message to "/start" and "/help" commands and which echoes the rest of the sent messages. To start the bot, add the following to our source file:

bot.polling()

Alright, that's it! Our source file now looks like this:

import telebot

bot = telebot.TeleBot("TOKEN")

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def send_welcome(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "Howdy, how are you doing?")

@bot.message_handler(func=lambda message: True)
def echo_all(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, message.text)

bot.polling()

To start the bot, simply open up a terminal and enter python echo_bot.py to run the bot! Test it by sending commands ('/start' and '/help') and arbitrary text messages.

General API Documentation

Types

All types are defined in types.py. They are all completely in line with the Telegram API's definition of the types, except for the Message's from field, which is renamed to from_user (because from is a Python reserved token). Thus, attributes such as message_id can be accessed directly with message.message_id. Note that message.chat can be either an instance of User or GroupChat (see How can I distinguish a User and a GroupChat in message.chat?).

The Message object also has a content_typeattribute, which defines the type of the Message. content_type can be one of the following strings: text, audio, document, photo, sticker, video, video_note, voice, location, contact, new_chat_members, left_chat_member, new_chat_title, new_chat_photo, delete_chat_photo, group_chat_created, supergroup_chat_created, channel_chat_created, migrate_to_chat_id, migrate_from_chat_id, pinned_message.

You can use some types in one function. Example:

content_types=["text", "sticker", "pinned_message", "photo", "audio"]

Methods

All API methods are located in the TeleBot class. They are renamed to follow common Python naming conventions. E.g. getMe is renamed to get_me and sendMessage to send_message.

General use of the API

Outlined below are some general use cases of the API.

Message handlers

A message handler is a function that is decorated with the message_handler decorator of a TeleBot instance. Message handlers consist of one or multiple filters. Each filter much return True for a certain message in order for a message handler to become eligible to handle that message. A message handler is declared in the following way (provided bot is an instance of TeleBot):

@bot.message_handler(filters)
def function_name(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "This is a message handler")

function_name is not bound to any restrictions. Any function name is permitted with message handlers. The function must accept at most one argument, which will be the message that the function must handle. filters is a list of keyword arguments. A filter is declared in the following manner: name=argument. One handler may have multiple filters. TeleBot supports the following filters:

Here are some examples of using the filters and message handlers:

import telebot
bot = telebot.TeleBot("TOKEN")

# Handles all text messages that contains the commands '/start' or '/help'.
@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def handle_start_help(message):
	pass

# Handles all sent documents and audio files
@bot.message_handler(content_types=['document', 'audio'])
def handle_docs_audio(message):
	pass

# Handles all text messages that match the regular expression
@bot.message_handler(regexp="SOME_REGEXP")
def handle_message(message):
	pass

#Handles all messages for which the lambda returns True
@bot.message_handler(func=lambda message: message.document.mime_type == 'text/plain', content_types=['document'])
def handle_text_doc(message):
	pass

#Which could also be defined as:
def test_message(message):
	return message.document.mime_type == 'text/plain'

@bot.message_handler(func=test_message, content_types=['document'])
def handle_text_doc(message)
	pass

# Handlers can be stacked to create a function which will be called if either message_handler is eligible
# This handler will be called if the message starts with '/hello' OR is some emoji
@bot.message_handler(commands=['hello'])
@bot.message_handler(func=lambda msg: msg.text.encode("utf-8") == SOME_FANCY_EMOJI)
def send_something(message):
    pass

Important: all handlers are tested in the order in which they were declared

Edited Message handlers

Same as Message handlers

channel_post_handler

Same as Message handlers

edited_channel_post_handler

Same as Message handlers

Callback Query Handler

In bot2.0 update. You can get callback_query in update object. In telebot use callback_query_handler to process callback_querys.

@bot.callback_query_handler(func=lambda call: True)
def  test_callback(call):
    logger.info(call)

TeleBot

import telebot

TOKEN = '<token_string>'
tb = telebot.TeleBot(TOKEN)	#create a new Telegram Bot object

# Upon calling this function, TeleBot starts polling the Telegram servers for new messages.
# - none_stop: True/False (default False) - Don't stop polling when receiving an error from the Telegram servers
# - interval: True/False (default False) - The interval between polling requests
#           Note: Editing this parameter harms the bot's response time
# - timeout: integer (default 20) - Timeout in seconds for long polling.
tb.polling(none_stop=False, interval=0, timeout=20)

# getMe
user = tb.get_me()

# setWebhook
tb.set_webhook(url="http://example.com", certificate=open('mycert.pem'))
# unset webhook
tb.remove_webhook()

# getUpdates
updates = tb.get_updates()
updates = tb.get_updates(1234,100,20) #get_Updates(offset, limit, timeout):

# sendMessage
tb.send_message(chatid, text)

# forwardMessage
tb.forward_message(to_chat_id, from_chat_id, message_id)

# All send_xyz functions which can take a file as an argument, can also take a file_id instead of a file.
# sendPhoto
photo = open('/tmp/photo.png', 'rb')
tb.send_photo(chat_id, photo)
tb.send_photo(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendAudio
audio = open('/tmp/audio.mp3', 'rb')
tb.send_audio(chat_id, audio)
tb.send_audio(chat_id, "FILEID")

## sendAudio with duration, performer and title.
tb.send_audio(CHAT_ID, file_data, 1, 'eternnoir', 'pyTelegram')

# sendVoice
voice = open('/tmp/voice.ogg', 'rb')
tb.send_voice(chat_id, voice)
tb.send_voice(chat_id, "FILEID")