I’m building my first Telegram bot using PHP and I’m stuck on something basic. I want to create a simple interaction where the bot asks for the user’s name after they send /begin command, then waits for them to type their name as a regular message (not another command), and finally responds with a greeting.
I figured out how to handle the /begin command part, but I can’t figure out how to listen for and process regular text messages that users send. These are just normal messages, not commands that start with a slash.
How do I set up a message handler that catches non-command text input from users? I need the bot to read whatever the user types next and use that as their name.
check the msg obj for reg text. when someone sends a normal msg, u’ll find their input in $update[‘message’][‘text’]. just make sure the first char isn’t ‘/’ to skip commands. don’t forget to store the user state so u know they’re waiting to enter their name after hitting /begin.
You’re missing state management for your bot. When someone sends /begin, save their chat ID with a status like “awaiting_name”. Then in your main message handler, check if the text exists and doesn’t start with /. If it’s regular text and the user’s waiting to give their name, process it as name input and update their state. Use sessions, a simple database table, or even a JSON file to track user states between messages. Without this, your bot has no clue what context incoming messages have.
To handle regular text messages in your Telegram bot, you should focus on the message type within your webhook. After the initial command like /begin, check if the incoming message does not start with a slash by using a condition like if (!empty($message['text']) && substr($message['text'], 0, 1) !== '/'). This will help you differentiate between commands and regular messages. Additionally, you’ll need a way to track user states, whether that’s through a text file, a database, or other means, to determine when a user is ready to input their name after the command is issued. It can be tricky since many tutorials tend to overlook the processing of non-command messages.