telegram-bot-bash/README.md

#bashbot
A Telegram bot written in bash.

Uses [json.sh](https://github.com/dominictarr/JSON.sh) and tmux (for interactive chats).


## Instructions
### Create your first bot

1. Message @botfather https://telegram.me/botfather with the following
text: `/newbot`
   If you don't know how to message by username, click the search
field on your Telegram app and type `@botfather`, you should be able
to initiate a conversation. Be careful not to send it to the wrong
contact, because some users has similar usernames to `botfather`.

   ![botfather initial conversation](http://i.imgur.com/aI26ixR.png)

2. @botfather replies with `Alright, a new bot. How are we going to
call it? Please choose a name for your bot.`

3. Type whatever name you want for your bot.

4. @botfather replies with `Good. Now let's choose a username for your
bot. It must end in `bot`. Like this, for example: TetrisBot or
tetris_bot.`

5. Type whatever username you want for your bot, minimum 5 characters,
and must end with `bot`. For example: `telesample_bot`

6. @botfather replies with:

    Done! Congratulations on your new bot. You will find it at
telegram.me/telesample_bot. You can now add a description, about
section and profile picture for your bot, see /help for a list of
commands.

    Use this token to access the HTTP API:
    <b>123456789:AAG90e14-0f8-40183D-18491dDE</b>

    For a description of the Bot API, see this page:
https://core.telegram.org/bots/api

7. Note down the 'token' mentioned above.

8. Type `/setprivacy` to @botfather.

   ![botfather later conversation](http://i.imgur.com/tWDVvh4.png)

9. @botfather replies with `Choose a bot to change group messages settings.`

10. Type `@telesample_bot` (change to the username you set at step 5
above, but start it with `@`)

11. @botfather replies with

    'Enable' - your bot will only receive messages that either start
with the '/' symbol or mention the bot by username.
    'Disable' - your bot will receive all messages that people send to groups.
    Current status is: ENABLED

12. Type `Disable` to let your bot receive all messages sent to a
group. This step is up to you actually.

13. @botfather replies with `Success! The new status is: DISABLED. /help`

### Install bashbot  
Clone the repository:  
```
git clone https://github.com/topkecleon/telegram-bot-bash
```

Paste the token on line 12 (instead of tokenhere).  
Then start editing the commands.  
  
### Recieve data  
You can read incoming data using the following variables:  

* ```$MESSAGE```: Incoming messages  
* ```$CAPTION```: Captions  
* ```$USER```: This array contains the First name, last name, username and user id of the sender of the current message.
 * ```${USER[ID]}```: User id  
 * ```${USER[FIRST_NAME]}```: User's first name  
 * ```${USER[LAST_NAME]}```: User's last name  
 * ```${USER[USERNAME]}```: Username  
* ```$URLS```: This array contains documents, audio files, stickers, voice recordings and stickers stored in the form of URLs.
 * ```${URLS[AUDIO]}```: Audio files  
 * ```${URLS[VIDEO]}```: Videos  
 * ```${URLS[PHOTO]}```: Photos (maximum quality)  
 * ```${URLS[VOICE]}```: Voice recordings  
 * ```${URLS[STICKER]}```: Stickers  
 * ```${URLS[DOCUMENT]}```: Any other file  
* ```$CONTACT```: This array contains info about contacts sent in a chat.
 * ```${CONTACT[NUMBER]}```: Phone number  
 * ```${CONTACT[FIRST_NAME]}```: First name  
 * ```${CONTACT[LAST_NAME]}```: Last name  
 * ```${CONTACT[ID]}```: User id  
* ```$LOCATION```: This array contains info about locations sent in a chat.
 * ```${LOCATION[LONGITUDE]}```: Longitude  
 * ```${LOCATION[LATITUDE]}```: Latitude  

### Usage  
To send messages use the ```send_message``` function:  
```
send_message "${USER[ID]}" "lol" 
```   
To send images, videos, voice files, photos ecc use the ```send_photo``` function:  
```
send_file "${USER[ID]}" "/home/user/doge.jpg" "Lool"
```
To send custom keyboards use the ```send_keyboard``` function:  
```
send_keyboard "${USER[ID]}" "Text that will appear in chat?" "Yep" "No"
```  
To send locations use the ```send_location``` function:  
```
send_location "${USER[ID]}" "Latitude" "Longitude"
```  
To forward messages use the ```forward``` function:  
```
forward "${USER[ID]}" "from_chat_id" "message_id"
```  
To send a chat action use the ```send_action``` function.
Allowed values: typing for text messages, upload_photo for photos, record_video or upload_video for videos, record_audio or upload_audio for audio files, upload_document for general files, find_location for locations.  
```
send_action "${USER[ID]}" "action"
```   

To create interactive chats, write (or edit the question script) a normal bash (or C or python) script, chmod +x it and then substitute ./question @ line 49 with the command you usually use to start the script.  
The text that the script will output will be sent in real time to the user, and all user input will be sent to the script (as long as it's running or until the user kills it with /cancel).   
To open up a keyboard in an interactive script, print out the keyboard layout in the following way:  
```
echo "Text that will appear in chat? mykeyboardstartshere Yep No"
```  
Same goes for files:
```
echo "Text that will appear in chat? myfilelocationstartshere /home/user/doge.jpg"
```  
And locations:  
```
echo "Text that will appear in chat. mylatstartshere 45 mylongstartshere 45"
```  
You can combine them:
```
echo "Text that will appear in chat? mykeyboardstartshere Yep No myfilelocationstartshere /home/user/doge.jpg mylatstartshere 45 mylongstartshere 45"
```  


Once you're done editing start the bot with ```tmux new-session -d -s bashbot "./bashbot.sh"```.  
To stop the bot run ```tmux kill-session -t bashbot```.  
If some thing doesn't work as it should, debug with ```bash -x bashbot.sh```.  

That's it!

If you feel that there's something missing or if you found a bug, feel free to submit a pull request!