Adding a Command to the Pack

A Royalnet Command is a small script that is run whenever a specific message is sent to a Royalnet interface.

A Command code looks like this:

import royalnet.commands as rc

class PingCommand(rc.Command):
    name = "ping"

    description = "Play ping-pong with the bot."

    def __init__(self, interface):
        # This code is run just once, while the bot is starting
        super().__init__()

    async def run(self, args: rc.CommandArgs, data: rc.CommandData):
        # This code is run every time the command is called
        await data.reply("Pong!")

Creating a new Command

First, think of a name for your command. It’s the name your command will be called with: for example, the “spaghetti” command will be called by typing /spaghetti in chat. Try to keep the name as short as possible, while staying specific enough so no other command will have the same name.

Next, create a new Python file with the name you have thought of. The previously mentioned “spaghetti” command should have a file called spaghetti.py.

Then, in the first row of the file, import the Command class from royalnet, and create a new class inheriting from it:

import royalnet.commands as rc

class SpaghettiCommand(rc.Command):
    ...

Inside the class, override the attributes name and description with respectively the name of the command and a small description of what the command will do:

import royalnet.commands as rc

class SpaghettiCommand(rc.Command):
    name = "spaghetti"

    description = "Send a spaghetti emoji in the chat."

Now override the Command.run() method, adding the code you want the bot to run when the command is called.

To send a message in the chat the command was called in, you can use the CommandData.reply() coroutine:

import royalnet.commands as rc

class SpaghettiCommand(rc.Command):
    name = "spaghetti"

    description = "Send a spaghetti emoji in the chat."

    async def run(self, args: rc.CommandArgs, data: rc.CommandData):
        await data.reply("🍝")

And… it’s done! The command is ready to be added to your pack!

Command arguments

A command can have some arguments passed by the user: for example, on Telegram an user may type /spaghetti carbonara al-dente to pass the str “carbonara al-dente” to the command code.

These arguments can be accessed in multiple ways through the args parameter passed to the Command.run() method.

If you want your command to use arguments, override the syntax class attribute with a brief description of the syntax of your command, possibly using {curly braces} for required arguments and [square brackets] for optional ones.

import royalnet.commands as rc

class SpaghettiCommand(rc.Command):
    name = "spaghetti"

    description = "Send a spaghetti emoji in the chat."

    syntax = "(requestedpasta)"

    async def run(self, args: rc.CommandArgs, data: rc.CommandData):
        await data.reply(f"🍝 Here's your {args[0]}!")

Direct access

You can consider arguments as if they were separated by spaces.

You can then access command arguments directly by number as if the args object was a list of str.

If you request an argument with a certain number, but the argument does not exist, an InvalidInputError is raised, making the arguments accessed in this way required.

args[0]
# "carbonara"

args[1]
# "al-dente"

args[2]
# raises InvalidInputError

Optional access

If you don’t want arguments to be required, you can access them through the CommandArgs.optional() method: it will return None if the argument wasn’t passed, making it optional.

args.optional(0)
# "carbonara"

args.optional(1)
# "al-dente"

args.optional(2)
# None

You can specify a default result too, so that the method will return it instead of returning None:

args.optional(2, default="banana")
# "banana"

Full string

If you want the full argument string, you can use the CommandArgs.joined() method.

args.joined()
# "carbonara al-dente"

You can specify a minimum number of arguments too, so that an InvalidInputError will be raised if not enough arguments are present:

args.joined(require_at_least=3)
# raises InvalidInputError

Regular expressions

For more complex commands, you may want to get arguments through regular expressions.

You can then use the CommandArgs.match() method, which tries to match a pattern to the command argument string, which returns a tuple of the matched groups and raises an InvalidInputError if there is no match.

To match a pattern, re.match() is used, meaning that Python will try to match only at the beginning of the string.

args.match(r"(carb\w+)")
# ("carbonara",)

args.match(r"(al-\w+)")
# raises InvalidInputError

args.match(r"\s*(al-\w+)")
# ("al-dente",)

args.match(r"\s*(carb\w+)\s*(al-\w+)")
# ("carbonara", "al-dente")

Raising errors

If you want to display an error message to the user, you can raise a CommandError using the error message as argument:

if not kitchen.is_open():
    raise CommandError("The kitchen is closed. Come back later!")

There are some subclasses of CommandError that can be used for some more specific cases:

UserError

The user did something wrong, it is not a problem with the bot.

InvalidInputError

The arguments the user passed to the command by the user are invalid. Displays the command syntax in the error message.

UnsupportedError

The command is not supported on the interface it is being called.

ConfigurationError

The config.toml file was misconfigured (a value is missing or invalid).

ExternalError

An external API the command depends on is unavailable or returned an error.

ProgramError

An error caused by a programming mistake. Equivalent to AssertionError, but includes a message to facilitate debugging.

Coroutines and slow operations

You may have noticed that in the previous examples we used await data.reply("🍝") instead of just data.reply("🍝").

This is because CommandData.reply() isn’t a simple method: it is a coroutine, a special kind of function that can be executed separately from the rest of the code, allowing the bot to do other things in the meantime.

By adding the await keyword before the data.reply("🍝"), we tell the bot that it can do other things, like receiving new messages, while the message is being sent.

You should avoid running slow normal functions inside bot commands, as they will stop the bot from working until they are finished and may cause bugs in other parts of the code!

async def run(self, args, data):
    # Don't do this!
    image = download_1_terabyte_of_spaghetti("right_now", from="italy")
    ...

If the slow function you want does not cause any side effect, you can wrap it with the royalnet.utils.asyncify() function:

async def run(self, args, data):
    # If the called function has no side effect, you can do this!
    image = await asyncify(download_1_terabyte_of_spaghetti, "right_now", from="italy")
    ...

Avoid using time.sleep() function, as it is considered a slow operation: use instead asyncio.sleep(), a coroutine that does the same exact thing but in an asyncronous way.

Delete the invoking message

The invoking message of a command is the message that the user sent that the bot recognized as a command; for example, the message /spaghetti carbonara is the invoking message for the spaghetti command run.

You can have the bot delete the invoking message for a command by calling the CommandData.delete_invoking method:

async def run(self, args, data):
    await data.delete_invoking()

Not all interfaces support deleting messages; by default, if the interface does not support deletions, the call is ignored.

You can have the method raise an error if the message can’t be deleted by setting the error_if_unavailable parameter to True:

async def run(self, args, data):
    try:
        await data.delete_invoking(error_if_unavailable=True)
    except royalnet.error.UnsupportedError:
        await data.reply("🚫 The message could not be deleted.")
    else:
        await data.reply("✅ The message was deleted!")

Using the database

Bots can be connected to a PostgreSQL database through a special SQLAlchemy interface called royalnet.alchemy.Alchemy.

If the connection is established, the self.alchemy and data.session fields will be available for use in commands.

self.alchemy is an instance of royalnet.alchemy.Alchemy, which contains the sqlalchemy.engine.Engine, metadata and tables, while data.session is a sqlalchemy.orm.session.Session, and can be interacted in the same way as one.

Querying the database

You can sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query the database using the SQLAlchemy ORM.

The SQLAlchemy tables can be found inside royalnet.alchemy.Alchemy with the royalnet.alchemy.Alchemy.get() method:

import royalnet.backpack.tables as rbt
User = self.alchemy.get(rbt.User)

Adding filters to the query

You can filter the query results with the sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.filter() method.

Note

Remember to always use a table column as first comparision element, as it won’t work otherwise.

query = query.filter(User.role == "Member")

Ordering the results of a query

You can order the query results in ascending order with the sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.order_by() method.

query = query.order_by(User.username)

Additionally, you can append the .desc() method to a table column to sort in descending order:

query = query.order_by(User.username.desc())

Fetching the results of a query

You can fetch the query results with the sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.all(), sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.first(), sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.one() and sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.one_or_none() methods.

Remember to use royalnet.utils.asyncify() when fetching results, as it may take a while!

Use sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.all() if you want a list of all results:

results: list = await asyncify(query.all)

Use sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.first() if you want the first result of the list, or None if there are no results:

result: typing.Union[..., None] = await asyncify(query.first)

Use sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.one() if you expect to have a single result, and you want the command to raise an error if any different number of results is returned:

result: ... = await asyncify(query.one)  # Raises an error if there are no results or more than a result.

Use sqlalchemy.orm.query.Query.one_or_none() if you expect to have a single result, or nothing, and if you want the command to raise an error if the number of results is greater than one.

result: typing.Union[..., None] = await asyncify(query.one_or_none)  # Raises an error if there is more than a result.

More Alchemy

You can read more about sqlalchemy at their website.

Calling Events

This section is not documented yet.

Displaying Keyboards

This section is not documented yet.

Running code at the initialization of the bot

This section is not documented yet.

Running repeating jobs

This section is not documented yet.