What's the best way to remove outdated Discord channels using a bot?

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1

I’m working on a Discord bot in Python that creates and removes channels based on user commands. I want to add a feature that checks all channels and deletes the ones that are no longer needed.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

async def clean_channels():
    while True:
        await asyncio.sleep(60)
        
        channel_pattern = re.compile(r'\d+_[a-z0-9]+-\d+')
        
        for channel in bot.get_all_channels():
            if channel_pattern.match(channel.name):
                raid_num = int(channel.name[0])
                current_raid = active_raids[raid_num]
                now = datetime.datetime.now()
                
                if current_raid.end_time < now:
                    if current_raid.close():
                        channel_id = current_raid.channel.id
                        await update_raid_list(current_raid)
                        await bot.delete_channel(bot.get_channel(channel_id))

Sometimes it works, but I often get this error:

RuntimeError: dictionary changed size during iteration

I think the problem is that I’m modifying the channel list while looping through it. How can I safely remove these channels without causing errors? Any suggestions would be great!

2

I’ve encountered similar issues when managing Discord channels programmatically. To resolve this, consider creating a separate list of channels to delete before executing the deletion process. Here’s a modified approach:

async def clean_channels():
    while True:
        await asyncio.sleep(60)
        
        channel_pattern = re.compile(r'\d+_[a-z0-9]+-\d+')
        channels_to_delete = []
        
        for channel in bot.get_all_channels():
            if channel_pattern.match(channel.name):
                raid_num = int(channel.name[0])
                current_raid = active_raids[raid_num]
                now = datetime.datetime.now()
                
                if current_raid.end_time < now:
                    channels_to_delete.append(channel)
        
        for channel in channels_to_delete:
            await bot.delete_channel(channel)
            await update_raid_list(current_raid)

This approach should prevent the RuntimeError you’re experiencing by separating the iteration and deletion processes.

3

hey, i had dis problem too. instead of loop over bot.get_all_channels(), do: channels_del = [ch for ch in bot.get_all_channels() if channel_pattern.match(ch.name)]. then remove channels while iterating this list. this avoids modifying the original, k?