Editing Channels and Messages

Sometimes we need to update an object, such as a message (whether it's plain text or an embed) or a channel. At first, it might seem confusing, but it's actually really simple! You need an object with all the properties being identical to the existing one. Say you're editing a message. You need to have an object with its ID the same as the one in Discord. Then you replace what you need, such as its content.

Note

This example uses callback functions and embeds. To see more information about them, visit Using Callback Functions and Sending Embeds.

Editing messages

Here we send a message and edit it after. To do so, we first reply to the command msg-send with some text, "This is a message" in our case. As described above, on the next step the message object is taken and the text is replaced with whatever the user desires.

#include <dpp/dpp.h>
 
int main() {
    /* the second argument is a bitmask of intents - i_message_content is needed to get messages */
    dpp::cluster bot("Token", dpp::i_default_intents | dpp::i_message_content);
 
    bot.on_log(dpp::utility::cout_logger());
 
    /* The event is fired when someone issues your commands */
    bot.on_slashcommand([&bot](const dpp::slashcommand_t& event) {
        if (event.command.get_command_name() == "msg-send") {
            event.reply("That's a message");
        } else if (event.command.get_command_name() == "msg-edit") {
            const auto content = std::get<std::string>(event.get_parameter("content"));
 
            /* get the message to edit it after. here string will automatically be converted to snowflake */
            const dpp::snowflake msg_id = std::get<std::string>(event.get_parameter("msg-id"));
 
            bot.message_get(msg_id, event.command.channel_id, [&bot, content, event](const dpp::confirmation_callback_t& callback) {
                if (callback.is_error()) {
                    event.reply("error");
                    return;
                }
                auto message = callback.get<dpp::message>();
 
                /* change the message content and edit the message itself */
                message.set_content(content);
                bot.message_edit(message);
                event.reply("Message content is now `" + content + "`.");
            });
        }
    });
 
    bot.on_ready([&bot](const dpp::ready_t& event) {
        if (dpp::run_once <struct register_global_commands>()) {
            dpp::slashcommand msg_edit("msg-edit", "Edit a message sent by the bot", bot.me.id);
 
            msg_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_string, "msg-id", "ID of the message to edit", true)); /* true for required option */
            msg_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_string, "content", "New content for the message", true)); /* same here */
 
            dpp::slashcommand msg_send("msg-send", "Send my message", bot.me.id);
 
            bot.global_bulk_command_create({ msg_edit, msg_send });
        }
    });
 
    bot.start(dpp::st_wait);
    return 0;
}

Note

Your bot can't edit messages sent by others!Sending Embeds.

Before editing the message:

After editing the message:

Editing channels

Now we'll want to edit an existing channel - its name in this case. This works similarly to how messages are edited.

#include <dpp/dpp.h>
 
int main() {
    /* the second argument is a bitmask of intents - i_message_content is needed to get messages */
    dpp::cluster bot("Token", dpp::i_default_intents | dpp::i_message_content);
 
    bot.on_log(dpp::utility::cout_logger());
 
    /* The event is fired when someone issues your commands */
    bot.on_slashcommand([&bot](const dpp::slashcommand_t& event) {
        if (event.command.get_command_name() == "channel-edit") {
            const auto name = std::get<std::string>(event.get_parameter("name"));
 
            /* get the channel to edit it after */
            const auto channel_id = std::get<dpp::snowflake>(event.get_parameter("channel"));
            bot.channel_get(channel_id, [&bot, name, event](const dpp::confirmation_callback_t& callback) {
                if (callback.is_error()) {
                    event.reply("error");
                    return;
                }
                auto channel = callback.get<dpp::channel>();
 
                /* change the channel name and edit the channel itself */
                channel.set_name(name);
                bot.channel_edit(channel);
                event.reply("Channel name is now `" + name + "`.");
            });
        }
    });
 
    bot.on_ready([&bot](const dpp::ready_t& event) {
 
        if (dpp::run_once <struct register_global_commands>()) {
            dpp::slashcommand channel_edit("channel-edit", "Edit the name of channel specified", bot.me.id);
 
            channel_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_channel, "channel", "Channel to edit", true));
            channel_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_string, "name", "New name for the channel", true));
 
            bot.global_command_create(channel_edit);
        }
    });
 
    bot.start(dpp::st_wait);
    return 0;
}

Before editing the channel:

After editing the channel:

Editing embeds

Now let's send an embed and edit it. If a message has one content field, it can have a few embed fields, up to 10 to be precise. So we first get the embed we want and edit and change its description.

#include <dpp/dpp.h>
 
int main() {
    /* the second argument is a bitmask of intents - i_message_content is needed to get messages */
    dpp::cluster bot("Token", dpp::i_default_intents | dpp::i_message_content);
 
    bot.on_log(dpp::utility::cout_logger());
 
    /* The event is fired when someone issues your commands */
    bot.on_slashcommand([&bot](const dpp::slashcommand_t& event) {
        if (event.command.get_command_name() == "embed-send") {
            dpp::embed embed = dpp::embed()
                .set_color(dpp::colors::sti_blue)
                .set_title("like and subscribe")
                .set_url("https://dpp.dev/")
                .set_author("Some author", "https://dpp.dev/", "https://dpp.dev/DPP-Logo.png")
                .set_description("Creator is <creator name>");
            event.reply(embed);
        } else if (event.command.get_command_name() == "embed-edit") {
            const auto description = std::get<std::string>(event.get_parameter("desc"));
 
            /* get the message to edit its embed after. here string will automatically be converted to snowflake */
            const dpp::snowflake msg_id = std::get<std::string>(event.get_parameter("msg-id"));
 
            bot.message_get(msg_id, event.command.channel_id, [&bot, description, event](const dpp::confirmation_callback_t& callback) {
                if (callback.is_error()) {
                    event.reply("error");
                    return;
                }
                auto message = callback.get<dpp::message>();
                auto& embeds = message.embeds;
 
                /* change the embed description and edit the message itself.
                 * since we're using a reference, what changes in embeds changes in message.embeds
                 */
                embeds[0].set_description(description);
 
                bot.message_edit(message);
                event.reply("Embed description is now `" + description + "`.");
            });
        }
    });
 
    bot.on_ready([&bot](const dpp::ready_t& event) {
        if (dpp::run_once <struct register_global_commands>()) {
            dpp::slashcommand embed_send("embed-send", "Send my embed", bot.me.id);
 
            dpp::slashcommand embed_edit("embed-edit", "Edit an embed sent by the bot", bot.me.id);
 
            embed_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_string, "msg-id", "ID of the embed to edit", true)); /* true for required option */
            embed_edit.add_option(dpp::command_option(dpp::co_string, "desc", "New description for the embed", true)); /* same here */
 
            bot.global_bulk_command_create({ embed_send, embed_edit });
        }
    });
 
    bot.start(dpp::st_wait);
    return 0;
}

Before editing the embed:

Finally, after editing the embed: