How to Build a Robust Telegram Bot with Long Polling in PHP Locally
Developers building Telegram bots locally often face challenges setting up public HTTPS webhooks, which typically require tunneling tools like Ngrok or Cloudflare Tunnels. Long polling via Telegram's getUpdates API method offers a simpler alternative, letting a local PHP script pull updates directly from Telegram's servers. A well-implemented polling loop must manage three key parameters — offset, timeout, and limit — to avoid duplicate processing, missed updates, and excessive CPU usage. The guide walks through building a CLI-based PHP script using cURL that dynamically tracks update offsets and gracefully handles network and API errors. The script is run locally by exporting a bot token as an environment variable and executing the PHP file from the terminal.
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