Telegram Bot with PHP

I’m writing this for future use. 4 steps.

But before that… need SSL certificates to run this thing. If you already have a web server, carry on. Otherwise, fix that problem.

Step 1

• Create new bot with TheBotFather (via Telegram)
• Invoke /newbot
• Give the bot a name
• Give the bot an ID (only _ is the allowed special character)
• When all is done, a message containing the token will be given

Step 2

• Create a directory for the bot (this is your bot’s root)
• Create index.php in root. Everything will be here. If you create separate files, you can <?php include(); ?> or <?php require_once(); ?> like a normal PHP file. For the sake of this post assume everything is in a single file to avoid headaches.
• Now your bot’s URL might be https://your.bot/index.php

Step 3

• Activate Webhook so that you can use Telegram API. Edit the token in the sample URL below and run it in a web browser.

https://api.telegram.org/bot<token_here>/setwebhook?url=https://your.bot/index.php

• Setup the bot in index.php like so:

$auth = "https://api.telegram.org/bot<token_here>";
$chatId = $update["message"]["chat"]["id"];
$msgId = $update["message"]["message_id"];
$sender = $update["message"]["from"]["first_name"];
$username = $update["message"]["from"]["username"];
$senderId = $update["message"]["from"]["id"];
$getmsg = $update["message"]["text"];
$sendmsg = "/sendMessage?parse_mode=HTML&chat_id=";

• $auth = “https://api.telegram.org/bot<token_here>”; // need this to authorize json requests
• $chatId = $update[“message”][“chat”][“id”]; // the active chat window
• $msgId = $update[“message”][“message_id”]; // ID of a specific message within an active chat
• $sender = $update[“message”][“from”][“first_name”]; // first name of a sender
• $username = $update[“message”][“from”][“username”]; // username of a sender (if any) – some users don’t have it
• $senderId = $update[“message”][“from”][“id”]; // ID of a sender (fixed and hidden)
• $getmsg = $update[“message”][“text”]; // the text being sent over
• $sendmsg = “/sendMessage?parse_mode=HTML&chat_id=”; // send message process itself

Step 4

• Create a sample greeting from the bot when a command is invoked using /start (the default command upon first launch of a bot
• You can /create /your /own /commands too
• Be sure to wrap everything you’re doing with…

<?php
...the block
?>

• You can also build a webpage like structure with <title> and all; won’t affect the bot.
• Begin the block with

if (
$getmsg == "/start") {

• Then the workings of this block…

$message = "wassup";
$url = $auth . "/sendMessage?parse_mode=HTML&chat_id=" . $chatId . "&text=" . urlencode($message);
file_get_contents($url);

• $message = “wassup”; // the message
• $url = $auth . “/sendMessage?parse_mode=HTML&chat_id=” . $chatId . “&text=” . urlencode($message); // the sending code; you can put /sendMessage?parse_mode=HTML in a variable too – $message’s content can be added directly in this line too like this: text=<the message> or . urlencode(“<the message>”) .
• file_get_contents($url); // this reads the string (the message and all) via https
• A message appears saying “wassup” 🙂
• Now close this block…

} // yes, this

That is it. Sending a photo is slightly different than sending a text.

file_get_contents("https://api.telegram.org/$ttoken/sendPhoto?chat_id=$chatId&photo=" . urlencode($photoUrl) . "&caption=" . urlencode($caption));

Set $photoURL beforehand of course with the actual photo’s URL. In this example $url is not used, you can also inline everything. The only difference is you can add the caption parameter.

Happy Boting

PS: Did you know in Windows 11 you can 🪟 + . to launch the emoji picker?