I’m building a Twitch chat bot in Java using the pircBot library. I need help finding a way to fetch the currently streamed game from any channel my bot connects to. Let’s say someone is streaming League of Legends or Minecraft - I want my bot to be able to detect and retrieve this game information automatically. Is there a built-in method in pircBot that allows me to access this data, or do I need to use additional API calls? Any code examples would be really helpful since I’m still learning how to work with Twitch’s systems.
totally! pircBot’s mainly for chat… u’ll need the Twitch API to get the game info. look into the Get Streams endpoint using your channel ID, and don’t forget to get an OAuth token - itll simplify things a lot!
I faced a similar issue when developing my bot a few months ago. While pircBot excels in managing chat functions, it doesn’t provide any stream-related data, such as the currently played game. What I found effective was to implement a caching mechanism for game information to reduce API calls. I created a HashMap where channel names serve as keys and their corresponding game details as values. This setup allows me to refresh the game data periodically using a scheduled executor, ensuring that users receive immediate responses without hitting the Twitch API every time. Remember to account for cases when streams are offline or when the API returns null for the game field.
pircBot doesn’t give you direct access to stream metadata like what game someone’s playing. I hit this same wall when building my bot last year. You’ll need to hit Twitch’s Helix API alongside pircBot. Use https://api.twitch.tv/helix/streams with the user_id parameter. First, register your app on Twitch Developer Console to get client credentials and an access token. I’d add a separate method to your bot class that either polls this endpoint every so often or triggers on specific chat commands. The JSON response has a game_name field with exactly what you want. Just watch the rate limits - don’t spam their API.