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Overview

Dialogs represent your conversations in Telegram, including private chats, groups, channels, and supergroups. MadelineProto provides different methods for bots and users to efficiently retrieve dialog information.

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Bot Accounts: Get Dialog IDs

For bot accounts, use getDialogIds() to efficiently retrieve all dialog IDs: 
$dialogIds = $MadelineProto->getDialogIds();

foreach ($dialogIds as $id) {
    echo "Dialog ID: $id\n";
    
    // Get info for specific dialog if needed
    $info = $MadelineProto->getInfo($id);
    echo "Type: " . $info['type'] . "\n";
}
Bot accounts should use getDialogIds() instead of getFullDialogs() for better performance. The method automatically caches all bot users using the updates.getDifference API.

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How It Works (Bots)

For bot accounts, MadelineProto:
  1. Calls updates.getDifference to fetch all updates
  2. Caches user and chat information from updates
  3. Returns the list of dialog IDs efficiently
  4. Handles updates.differenceTooLong by binary searching for the right PTS
This is implemented in /home/daytona/workspace/source/src/Wrappers/DialogHandler.php:53-101.

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User Accounts: Get Full Dialogs

For user accounts, use getFullDialogs() to retrieve complete dialog information: 
$dialogs = $MadelineProto->getFullDialogs();

foreach ($dialogs as $id => $dialog) {
    echo "Chat ID: $id\n";
    echo "Type: " . $dialog['Peer']['_'] . "\n";
    echo "Top Message: " . $dialog['top_message'] . "\n";
    
    // Access unread count
    if (isset($dialog['unread_count'])) {
        echo "Unread: " . $dialog['unread_count'] . "\n";
    }
}

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Dialog Information

Each dialog contains: 
[
    'top_message' => 12345,              // ID of most recent message
    'unread_count' => 5,                 // Number of unread messages
    'unread_mentions_count' => 0,        // Unread mentions
    'notify_settings' => [...],          // Notification settings
    'peer' => [...],                     // Peer information
    'Peer' => [...],                     // Constructed peer object
]

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Fetching Dialog Details

The messages.getDialogs method is called internally with pagination: 
// Internal parameters used by MadelineProto
$params = [
    'limit' => 100,                      // Fetch 100 dialogs at a time
    'offset_date' => 0,                  // Start from beginning
    'offset_id' => 0,                    // Message offset
    'offset_peer' => ['_' => 'inputPeerEmpty'],
    'hash' => 0,
];
MadelineProto automatically handles pagination until all dialogs are fetched.

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Dialog Filtering

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Filter by Type

$dialogs = $MadelineProto->getFullDialogs();

// Get only private chats
$privateChats = array_filter($dialogs, function($dialog) use ($MadelineProto) {
    $id = $dialog['peer']['user_id'] ?? 
          $dialog['peer']['chat_id'] ?? 
          $dialog['peer']['channel_id'];
    
    return $MadelineProto->getInfo($id)['type'] === 'user';
});

// Get only channels
$channels = array_filter($dialogs, function($dialog) use ($MadelineProto) {
    $id = $dialog['peer']['user_id'] ?? 
          $dialog['peer']['chat_id'] ?? 
          $dialog['peer']['channel_id'];
    
    return $MadelineProto->getInfo($id)['type'] === 'channel';
});

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Filter by Unread Count

// Get only dialogs with unread messages
$unreadDialogs = array_filter($dialogs, function($dialog) {
    return ($dialog['unread_count'] ?? 0) > 0;
});

foreach ($unreadDialogs as $id => $dialog) {
    echo "Unread messages in $id: " . $dialog['unread_count'] . "\n";
}

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Caching Behavior

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Automatic Caching

MadelineProto can automatically cache all dialogs on startup: 
use danog\MadelineProto\Settings;
use danog\MadelineProto\Settings\Peer;

$settings = new Settings;
$settings->getPeer()->setCacheAllPeersOnStartup(true);

$MadelineProto = new API('session.madeline', $settings);
Enabling setCacheAllPeersOnStartup(true) will fetch all dialogs during login, which may take time for accounts with many chats.

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Manual Cache Control

// Force refresh dialogs (ignore cache)
$dialogs = $MadelineProto->getFullDialogs();

// For bots, re-cache all users
$dialogIds = $MadelineProto->getDialogIds();

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Accessing Messages

Once you have dialog IDs, retrieve messages: 
$dialogs = $MadelineProto->getFullDialogs();

foreach ($dialogs as $id => $dialog) {
    // Get the 10 most recent messages
    $messages = $MadelineProto->messages->getHistory([
        'peer' => $id,
        'limit' => 10,
    ]);
    
    foreach ($messages['messages'] as $message) {
        if ($message['_'] === 'message') {
            echo "Message: " . ($message['message'] ?? '[media]') . "\n";
        }
    }
}

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Performance Best Practices

  • Always use getDialogIds() instead of getFullDialogs()
  • Call getInfo() only when you need specific dialog details
  • Cache dialog IDs in your application if needed
  • Use getFullDialogs() sparingly, as it fetches all conversations
  • Enable setCacheAllPeersOnStartup() only if you need all dialogs immediately
  • Consider fetching dialogs on-demand rather than all at once

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Error Handling

use danog\MadelineProto\Exception;
use danog\MadelineProto\RPCErrorException;

try {
    $dialogs = $MadelineProto->getFullDialogs();
} catch (Exception $e) {
    if ($MadelineProto->authorization['user']['bot']) {
        echo "Error: Bots should use getDialogIds() instead\n";
    } else {
        echo "Error fetching dialogs: " . $e->getMessage() . "\n";
    }
} catch (RPCErrorException $e) {
    echo "Telegram API error: " . $e->getMessage() . "\n";
}

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Advanced: Binary Search for PTS

When bot accounts encounter updates.differenceTooLong, MadelineProto performs a binary search to find the correct PTS (Persistent Timestamp): 
// This is handled automatically by MadelineProto
// Source: /home/daytona/workspace/source/src/Wrappers/DialogHandler.php:102-138

// The algorithm:
// 1. Set bottomPts and topPts bounds
// 2. Try middle PTS value
// 3. If differenceTooLong, adjust bottomPts up
// 4. If success, adjust topPts down
// 5. Repeat until correct PTS is found

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See Also

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