Hears

The hears method in GramIO allows you to set up responses to specific messages. You can define what messages your bot should listen for and how it should handle when those messages are detected. The method is flexible and can work with regular expressions, exact strings, or custom functions.

Basic Usage

Using a Regular Expression matcher

You can make your bot listen for messages that match a specific pattern using regular expressions. This is useful when you want your bot to respond to messages that follow a certain structure.

bot.hears(/hello (.*)/i, async (context) => {
    if (context.args) {
        await context.send(`Hello, ${context.args[1]}!`);
    }
});

In this example, the bot listens for messages that start with "hello" followed by any text. When such a message is received, the bot extracts the text after "hello" and sends a personalized greeting.

Using a String matcher

If you want your bot to respond to a specific word or phrase, you can use a string trigger.

bot.hears("start", async (context) => {
    await context.send("Welcome! Type 'help' to see available commands.");
});

In this case, the bot listens for the exact word "start" and replies with a welcome message.

Using a Function matcher

For more advanced scenarios, you can use a function to define the trigger. This function checks the message context and decides whether to trigger the response.

bot.hears(
    (context) => context.user.role === "admin",
    async (context) => {
        await context.send("Hello, Admin! How can I assist you?");
    }
);

Here, the bot checks if the user is an admin. If so, it sends a special message for admins.