How do I get the user picture/avatar using the Telegram bot chat API?

Question

The user object has no photo_id, so is there way to get the user's avatar?

Answer 1

I didn't find any php code, but this nodejs snippet worked for me so I put this to give you the idea that how it works.

1. Create a bot(start chatting with @botfather in your telegram)
2. After creation of bot finished, it will give you a token for HTTP API
3. $ npm install --save node-telegram-bot-api
4. create a js file beside the node_modules folder(for example: server.js)

5. put this codes in the server.js file and then run it with $ node server.js

       const TelegramBot = require('node-telegram-bot-api');
       // replace the value below with the Telegram token you receive from @BotFather  
       const token = 'XXXX35XXXX:XXXX7DCYw5IsY6DHcwXXXXXXXXX';
       // Create a bot that uses 'polling' to fetch new updates    
       const bot = new TelegramBot(token, {
           polling: true
       });
       // Matches "/echo [whatever]"    
       bot.onText(/\/echo (.+)/, (msg, match) => {
           // 'msg' is the received Message from Telegram    
           // 'match' is the result of executing the regexp above on the text content    
           // of the message    
   
           const chatId = msg.chat.id;
           const resp = match[1]; // the captured "whatever"    
   
           // send back the matched "whatever" to the chat    
           bot.sendMessage(chatId, resp);
       });
       // Listen for any kind of message. There are different kinds of  
       // messages.  
       bot.on('message', (msg) => {
           const chatId = msg.chat.id;
           var user_profile = bot.getUserProfilePhotos(msg.from.id);
           user_profile.then(function (res) {
               var file_id = res.photos[0][0].file_id;
               var file = bot.getFile(file_id);
               file.then(function (result) {
                   var file_path = result.file_path;
                   var photo_url = `https://api.telegram.org/file/bot${token}/${file_path}`
                   bot.sendMessage(chatId, photo_url);
               });
           });
       });