TdNode

TdNode is a Node.JS interface for TDLib

It natively wraps around TDLib and eliminates the need for external dependencies such as tdjson.

Currently, the module is only available on Windows and ubuntu, and community support would be appreciated to help improve install.js to support other platforms.

Usage

The module exports a TdNode class. It is recommended that immediately upon loading the module, you use the static sync setLogVerbosityLevel method in order to disable TDLib logging.

TdNode.execute({
    "@type": "setLogVerbosityLevel",
    new_verbosity_level: 0,
});

When you create a new TdNode();, you must handle updates manually in a similar fashion to tdjson.

Receiving

The receive method takes a single optional number parameter to indicate the maximum amount of seconds the client will poll TDLib before giving up. Note: The timeout may be longer than specified if you have many clients receiving all at once. By default, the timeout is 60.0 seconds.

When called, the method will return a Promise object for the data to receive. If there is data available immediately, the promise will be returned in an already resolved state.

async function loop(client, timeout) {
    while (true) {
        const data = await client.receive(60);
        if (!data) { // data will be null if the timeout expires
            continue;
        }
        // do something with the data.
    }
}

Sending

The send method takes a single required parameter containing the request to send to TDLib. You may optionally supply an @extra field in the request in the form of an object, string, number, or bigint. null and undefined is ignored. Other data types are not accepted. While you may reuse an id you used previously, it is not recommended.

Using an object as an @extra could allow you to do promise chaining by having the receiver resolve/reject a promise:

const client = new TdNode;
function request(data) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        data["@extra"] = [resolve, reject];
        client.send(data);
    });
}
async function doReceive() {
    while (true) {
        const data = await client.receive(60);
        if (data) {
            const extraData = data["@extra"];
            if (Array.isArray(extraData) && extraData.length === 2 && typeof extraData[0] === "function" && typeof extraData[1] === "function") {
                if (data["@type"] === "error") {
                    extraData[1](data);
                } else {
                    extraData[0](data);
                }
            } else if (extraData) {
                // legacy @extra handling
            } else {
                // Just a regular update, or lacking @extra data
            }
        }
    }
}
doReceive();
async function main() {
    const { updates } = await request({
        "@type": "getCurrentState",
    });
    // do something with the updates
    console.log(updates);
}
main();

Methods that can be executed synchronously may be done with the static execute method. The execute method does not support the @extra field. If an error is returned by the static execute method, the value will be thrown instead of returned.

Note: Most fields in TDLib are required, and leaving those values null or undefined may lead to unexpected behaviour up to and including a crash without process.on("exit") listeners being called. If the field is specified, but is simply not the correct type, this method will throw an error.

TdNode.execute({
    "@type": "setLogVerbosityLevel",
    new_verbosity_level: 0,
});
client.send({
    "@type": "setTdlibParameters",
    "@extra": 123,
    parameters: {
        "@type": "tdlibParameters",
        use_test_dc: false,
        database_directory: "database",
        files_directory: "files",
        use_file_database: true,
        use_chat_info_database: true,
        use_message_database: true,
        use_secret_chats: false,
        api_id: NaN,
        api_hash: "",
        system_language_code: "",
        device_model: "",
        system_version: "",
        application_version: "",
        enable_storage_optimizer: true,
        ignore_file_names: true,
    },
});

Data types

For primitive types in TDLib, here is a table for what types you can expect to see from them

TDLib	JavaScript
double	number
string	string
int32	number
int53	number
int64	bigint
bytes	string
boolFalse	boolean
boolTrue	boolean
Bool	boolean
vector	Array
error	Error