How to loop inside a custom Telegram bot?

Question

We are trying to make a telegram price bot but running into an issue that could be solved using third party code, however we can't set the bot to send us the updated price every 5 minutes (or more) WITHOUT USING THIRD PARTY SOLUTIONS for security reasons.

How to loop from INSIDE this code, without using another third party Telegram bot?

Here is the code

import telegram
from telegram.ext import Updater
from telegram.ext import CommandHandler
from tracker import get_prices

telegram_bot_token = "mybot"

updater = Updater(token=telegram_bot_token, use_context=True)
dispatcher = updater.dispatcher


def start(update, context):
    chat_id = update.effective_chat.id
    message = ""

    crypto_data = get_prices()
    for i in crypto_data:
        coin = crypto_data[i]["coin"]
        price = crypto_data[i]["price"]
        change_day = crypto_data[i]["change_day"]
        change_hour = crypto_data[i]["change_hour"]
        message += f" {coin}={price:,.5f}$ 
Hour Change: {change_hour:.3f}%
Day Change: {change_day:.3f}%

"

    context.bot.send_message(chat_id=chat_id, text=message)


dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler("start", start))
updater.start_polling()

Any solution that correctly sends one message at a time without appending to the previous one? Thanks!

user_14266189 · Answer

There are different ways to do this.

The first would be with a simple time.sleep() in a while loop:

import time

def start(update, context):
    chat_id = update.effective_chat.id
    while True:
        message = ""
        crypto_data = get_prices()
        for i in crypto_data:
            coin = crypto_data[i]["coin"]
            price = crypto_data[i]["price"]
            change_day = crypto_data[i]["change_day"]
            change_hour = crypto_data[i]["change_hour"]
            message += f" {coin}={price:,.5f}$ 
Hour Change:{change_hour:.3f}%
Day Change: {change_day:.3f}%

"


        context.bot.send_message(chat_id=chat_id, text=message)
        time.sleep(300)

Another method might be using a background process scheduler, but you would probably refactor your start function and only schedule the part that creates/sends the message. (The part inside the while loop)

Advanced Python Scheduler (pip install apscheduler) is a fantastic library for this, but it is a third party library, so maybe not appropriate for you. I have used it on many projects however.

EDIT:

Here's an example of scheduling with apscheduler:

from apscheduler.schedulers.background import BackgroundScheduler

scheduler = BackgroundScheduler()

def message_loop(chat_id, bot):
    message = ""
    crypto_data = get_prices()
    for i in crypto_data:
        coin = crypto_data[i]["coin"]
        price = crypto_data[i]["price"]
        change_day = crypto_data[i]["change_day"]
        change_hour = crypto_data[i]["change_hour"]
        message += f" {coin}={price:,.5f}$ 
Hour Change: {change_hour:.3f}%
Day Change: {change_day:.3f}%

"
    bot.send_message(chat_id=chat_id, text=message)


def start(update, context):
    chat_id = update.effective_chat.id
    bot = context.bot
    scheduler.add_job(message_loop, 'interval', minutes=5, args=(chat_id, bot))
    scheduler.start()

# You might want to also add a stop function to your bot:

def stop():
    scheduler.shutdown()

dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler("start", start))
dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler("stop", stop))
updater.start_polling()

user_16937817 · Answer

you should try to add setinterval or a pure millis() function and you will be good to go

How to loop inside a custom Telegram bot?

2 Answers