如何在没有用户输入的情况下发送消息Telegram BOT API

Question

I made a simple bot with Node.js and the Telegram BOT API and the question is how can I send a message each certain time, for example I want to say "hello" every 5 minutes, What do I have to do ?

Here is my current code:

var express     = require('express');
var app         = express();
var bodyParser  = require('body-parser');
const axios     = require('axios')

app.use(bodyParser.json()); // for parsing application/json
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
   extended: true
})); // for parsing application/x-www-form-urlencoded
//This is the route the API will call
app.post('/new-message', function(req, res) {
  const {message} = req.body;

  //Each message contains "text" and a "chat" object, which has an "id" which is the chat id

  axios.get('some_api'+message.text.toLowerCase()+ '/')
  .then(resp => {
       axios.post('https://api.telegram.org/bot<MYTOKEN>/sendMessage', {
        chat_id: message.chat.id,
        text: `*${resp.data[0].name} (#${resp.data[0].symbol})*
        Price USD: ${resp.data[0].price_usd}
        Percent Change 24h: ${resp.data[0].percent_change_24h}
        Market Cap USD: ${resp.data[0].market_cap_usd}`,
        parse_mode:'Markdown'
  })
  .then(response => {
    // We get here if the message was successfully posted
    console.log('Message posted')
    res.end('ok')
  })
  .catch(err => {
    // ...and here if it was not
    console.log('Error :', err)
    res.end('Error :' + err)
  })

  })
  .catch(err => {
    // ...and here if it was not
    console.log('Error :', err)
    res.end('Error :' + err)
})
});

// Finally, start our server
app.listen(3000, function() {
  console.log('Telegram app listening on port 3000!');
});

Answer 1

you can do that,
you can send messages to a specific user or to a specific chat.

But first you need to get the msg.from.id or 'msg.chat.id' , store it, and send notifications whenever you need.

when a user joins your bot, and he press the 'start' button you can trigger that action, on your server:

// on global scope or wherever
 var fromId=null
 var chatId=null
// trigers when user press 'start' button
bot.onText(/\/start/, function (msg, match) {
   chatId=msg.chat.id;
   fromId = msg.from.id; // store that value and use it as param on sendMessage()
   var name = msg.from.first_name
   bot.sendMessage(fromId, `Welcome dear ${name} have fun`);
});

Now you can create our time intervals and send to user or char

---

if(fromId) {
   setInterval(() => {
     bot.sendMessage(fromId, `message to the user`),
     300,000}) // every 5 mins
   }

I hope this helps.