Python Discord Music Bot - How to Display YouTube Link in Chat

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1

I’m working on a Discord music bot using Python that can play audio from YouTube videos. The bot works fine for playing music, but I want to add a feature where it posts the YouTube URL in the chat when requested.

Here’s my current music command code:

@client.command()
async def music(ctx, *, search_term: str):
    options = {'default_search': 'auto', 'quiet': True}
    
    if voice_client == None:
        await ctx.send('Connect me to a voice channel first (!join)')
    
    elif search_term[:3] == 'url':
        try:
            index = int(search_term[4])
            await ctx.send(song_list[index][0])
        except Exception as error:
            await ctx.send(error)
    
    elif len(search_term) != 1:
        song_list = youtube_helper.find_videos(search_term, 4)
        for j in range(4):
            embed = discord.Embed(title=song_list[j][1], colour=0x0099ff)
            embed.set_thumbnail(url=f'https://i.ytimg.com/vi/{song_list[j][0][32:]}/hqdefault.jpg')
            await ctx.send(embed=embed)
        await ctx.send('Pick a song! (!music 1/2/3/4)')
    
    else:
        try:
            if audio_player != None:
                audio_player.stop()
            choice = int(search_term)
            audio_player = await voice_client.create_ytdl_player(song_list[choice-1][0], ytdl_options=options)
            audio_player.volume = 0.3
            audio_player.start()
        except Exception as error:
            await ctx.send(error)

My issue is with the command prefix. Right now I use ‘url’ but I want to make it shorter like ‘-u’ or something similar. When I try to change query[:3] == 'url' to a different pattern, it doesn’t work properly. How can I modify this to use a shorter command like .music -u 1 instead of .music url 1?

2

The issue is how you’re extracting the index after switching prefixes. With ‘url’ you assumed a format like ‘url1’, but ‘-u 1’ has whitespace that breaks things. Don’t hardcode slice positions - use startswith() instead since it’s way more flexible. Change your condition to if search_term.startswith('-u'): then grab everything after ‘-u’ with search_term[2:].strip(). The .strip() handles any whitespace between the flag and number, so both -u1 and -u 1 work automatically. I’ve used this pattern in tons of Discord bots and it’s much more forgiving than relying on exact positions. Your current search_term[4] assumes the number’s at position 4, but with -u 1 it’s actually at position 3. Using startswith eliminates these off-by-one headaches completely.

3

Just use search_term.split('-u') - way cleaner than slicing. If it returns 2 parts, there’s a -u flag and you can grab the number from part 2. Try if '-u' in search_term: index = int(search_term.split('-u')[1].strip()) - handles both -u1 and -u 1 without any hassle.

4

Your issue is pretty simple to fix. When you switch from ‘url’ to ‘-u’, you need to update both the slice length and index extraction. Since ‘-u’ is only two characters, change your check to search_term[:2] == '-u' and use search_term[3:] to grab the number after the space. Right now your code expects url1 format without spaces, but -u 1 has a space in it. Just use search_term.split() to handle the space properly. Try something like parts = search_term.split(), then check if parts[0] == '-u' and use int(parts[1]) for the index. This approach works way better since it handles different amounts of spacing between the flag and number. I ran into the same parsing headaches building my bot - the split method gave me much cleaner results than trying to rely on fixed positions.