I’m working on a game bot for Telegram using PHP. I need help figuring out how to handle timeouts for different parts of the game. Here’s what I’m trying to do:
Set up a room that expires after 10 minutes
Give players 5 seconds to answer questions
I’m not sure how to make the bot aware of these timeouts without it constantly pinging my API. For example, how can I let the bot know when:
The room has reached its 10-minute limit
A player hasn’t answered within their 5-second window
Right now, I can only handle these situations when the Telegram API calls my code. But what if there’s no API call and the time just runs out?
Has anyone dealt with this before? What’s the best way to manage these timeouts in a PHP Telegram bot? Any tips or examples would be super helpful. Thanks!
Having developed Telegram bots, I can offer some insights on managing timeouts. For room expiration, consider using Redis with its built-in expiration feature. Set a key for each room with a 10-minute TTL. When it expires, Redis can trigger an event to close the room.
For the 5-second answer window, you could implement a queue system like RabbitMQ. When a question is asked, add a message to the queue with a 5-second delay. If the player answers before the message is processed, remove it from the queue. Otherwise, handle the timeout when the message is consumed.
These approaches offload the timing logic from your main application, making it more scalable and responsive. They also solve the issue of needing constant API pings. Just ensure your bot can handle incoming updates from these external systems efficiently.
I’ve worked on similar projects, and handling timeouts can be tricky. For your room expiration, I’d suggest using a database to store room creation times. Then, when you receive an API call, check if the room’s age exceeds 10 minutes. If so, close it and notify users.
For the 5-second answer window, you could store the timestamp when a question is asked. On the next API call, compare the current time to the stored timestamp. If it’s over 5 seconds, consider it a timeout.
To handle timeouts without API calls, you might need a separate process. Consider setting up a cron job or using a task scheduler like Swoole to periodically check for expired rooms and unanswered questions.
Remember, Telegram’s API is event-driven, so you’ll always need some external trigger to check timeouts. A combination of API-call checks and scheduled tasks should cover most scenarios.
hey, try websockets for real-time updates without constant api calls. for room timeouts, store start time and check on interaction. for quick answers, use client-side js to track time and trigger a timeout. might be worth a shot!