Hey everyone! I’m working on a project for a buddy of mine. He’s got this basic website built with HTML, JavaScript, and jQuery. What we’re trying to do is hook it up with Telegram so that when someone fills out a form on the site, a Telegram bot sends that info to a group chat.
I’ve got the chat_id figured out, but I’m pretty new to Telegram bots. I tried using curl to send POST requests to my bot with the sendMessage method, but no luck so far.
I’m having trouble getting any output from curl in the command line. I heard something about stdout, but I’m not sure what that means.
So, I’ve got two things I need help with:
How do I get curl to show me what’s happening when I make a request?
What’s the right way to set up the request so the bot can message me?
I tried following the example in the Telegram bot manual, but it’s not working for me. Any tips would be super helpful! Thanks!
hey flyingstar, i’ve messed with telegram bots before. for curl output, try adding -v flag to see verbose info. for bot messaging, double-check your API token and chat_id are correct. also, make sure you’re using https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>/sendMessage as the endpoint. hope that helps!
I’ve actually implemented something similar for a client recently. Here’s what worked for me:
For debugging curl, the -v flag Laura mentioned is great, but I also found -i helpful to see the full HTTP response headers.
As for getting the bot to message, make sure your POST request includes the chat_id and text parameters in the request body. I initially struggled because I was putting them in the URL instead.
One gotcha: if your message contains special characters, you might need to URL encode the text parameter. I used JavaScript’s encodeURIComponent() function for this.
Lastly, don’t forget to initialize the bot in your group chat. You need to add it as an admin for it to send messages there.
Hope this helps you troubleshoot. Let me know if you hit any other snags!
I encountered similar issues when setting up a Telegram bot for form data relay. Here’s what worked for me:
For curl debugging, use the --trace-ascii option followed by a filename. This logs all details to a file, which you can examine later.
Regarding the bot messaging, ensure you’re using the correct HTTP method (POST) and content type (application/json) in your request. Also, verify that your bot token is active and hasn’t expired.
One often-overlooked step is error handling. Implement proper error catching in your JavaScript to identify issues on the client side before the request is sent.
Lastly, if you’re still stuck, Telegram’s Bot API has a getUpdates method. Use it to manually check if your bot is receiving updates correctly. This can help pinpoint where the communication breakdown is occurring.