Extend --help text to include info for acquiring Telegram API ID/hash (#20)

* Fix Poetry mismatch b/w pyproject.toml/poetry.lock

* docs: poetry run command to use pyproject script

* Update .gitignore

* Add show_default kwarg to --output option

* Add envvar kwarg to options and move load_dotenv()

* Add info on creating/storing api credentials

* Bump version

---------

Co-authored-by: Galen Reich <54807169+GalenReich@users.noreply.github.com>

.gitignore

@@ -1,4 +1,11 @@
 .env
 *.session
 *.json
-dist/
+dist/
+
+# JetBrains IDEs
+.idea/
+
+# Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
+__pycache__/
+**/*.py[cod]

README.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ You can install this tool directly from the [official pypi release](https://pypi
 pip install telegram-phone-number-checker
 ```
 
-You can also install it and run it directly from github as a script.
+You can also install it and run it directly from GitHub as a script.
 ```bash
 git clone https://github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker
 cd telegram-phone-number-checker
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ The result will be written to the console but also written as JSON to a `results
 
 For each phone number, you can expect the following possible responses:
 
-1. If available, you will receive the Telegram Username,Name, and ID that are connected with this number.
+1. If available, you will receive the Telegram Username, Name, and ID that are connected with this number.
 2. 'no username detected'. This means that it looks like the number was used to create a Telegram account but the user did not choose a Telegram Username. It is optional to create a Username on Telegram.
 3. 'ERROR: no response, the user does not exist or has blocked contact adding.': There can be several reasons for this response. Either the phone number has not been used to create a Telegram account. Or: The phone number is connected to a Telegram account but the user has restricted the option to find him/her via the phone number.
 4. Or: another error occurred.
@@ -77,6 +77,9 @@ cd telegram-phone-number-checker
 This project uses [poetry](https://python-poetry.org/) to manage dependencies. You can install dependencies via poetry, or use the up-to-date [requirements.txt](requirements.txt) file.
 
 ```bash
+# install poetry if you haven't already
+pip install poetry
+
 # with poetry
 poetry install
 
@@ -87,7 +90,7 @@ pip install -r requirements.txt
 You can then run it with any of these:
 ```bash
 # with poetry
-poetry run python3 telegram_phone_number_checker/main.py
+poetry run telegram-phone-number-checker
 
 # with pip installation
 python3 telegram_phone_number_checker/main.py

poetry.lock

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# This file is automatically @generated by Poetry 1.6.1 and should not be changed by hand.
+# This file is automatically @generated by Poetry 1.8.2 and should not be changed by hand.
 
 [[package]]
 name = "anyio"
@@ -162,5 +162,5 @@ files = [
 
 [metadata]
 lock-version = "2.0"
-python-versions = "^3.10"
-content-hash = "1cf8b9ab78b1cf2860f38fc9e50e373b857e6d10ed6a397cb4f29cc556e14c95"
+python-versions = "^3.9"
+content-hash = "926cb8d034d6b5554d1a45ea61091fb4267210f203eefbf4da7604c3c19cbeb0"

pyproject.toml

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "telegram-phone-number-checker"
-version = "1.0.2"
+version = "1.0.8"
 description = "Check if phone numbers are connected to Telegram accounts."
 authors = ["Bellingcat"]
 license = "MIT"

telegram_phone_number_checker/main.py

@@ -1,37 +1,45 @@
-import os, json
-from telethon.sync import TelegramClient, errors
+import os, json, re
+from telethon.sync import TelegramClient, errors, functions
 from telethon.tl.types import InputPhoneContact
-from telethon import functions
 from dotenv import load_dotenv
 from getpass import getpass
 import click
 
+
 load_dotenv()
 
-def get_names(client, phone_number):
+def get_names(client: TelegramClient, phone_number: str) -> dict:
     """
-    This function takes in a phone number and returns the username first name and the last name of the user if the user exists. It does so by first adding the user's phones to the contact list, retrieving the information, and then deleting the user from the contact list.
+    Takes in a phone number and returns the associated user information if the user exists. It does so by first adding the user's phones to the contact list, retrieving the information, and then deleting the user from the contact list.
     """
     result = {}
     print(f'Checking: {phone_number=} ...', end="", flush=True)
     try:
+        # Create a contact
         contact = InputPhoneContact(client_id = 0, phone = phone_number, first_name="", last_name="")
+        # Attempt to add the contact from the address book
         contacts = client(functions.contacts.ImportContactsRequest([contact]))
-        username = contacts.to_dict()['users'][0]['username']
-        if not username:
-            result.update({"error": f'ERROR: no username detected'})
-            del_usr = client(functions.contacts.DeleteContactsRequest(id=[username]))
-        else:
-            result.update({"username": username})
-            del_usr = client(functions.contacts.DeleteContactsRequest(id=[username]))
-            # getting more information about the user
-            id = del_usr.to_dict()['users'][0]['id']
-            first_name = del_usr.to_dict()['users'][0]['first_name']
-            last_name = del_usr.to_dict()['users'][0]['last_name']
-            result.update({"first_name": first_name, "last_name": last_name, "id": id})
 
-    except IndexError as e:
-        result.update({"error": f'ERROR: no response, the user does not exist or has blocked contact adding.'})
+        users = contacts.to_dict().get('users', [])
+        number_of_matches = len(users)
+
+        if number_of_matches == 0:
+            result.update({"error": f'No response, the phone number is not on Telegram or has blocked contact adding.'})
+        elif number_of_matches == 1:
+            # Attempt to remove the contact from the address book
+            # The response from DeleteContactsRequest contains more information than from ImportContactsRequest
+            del_user = client(functions.contacts.DeleteContactsRequest(id=[users[0].get('id')]))
+            user  = del_user.to_dict().get('users')[0]
+            # getting more information about the user
+            result.update({
+                "id": user.get('id'),
+                "username": user.get('username'),
+                "first_name": user.get('first_name'),
+                "last_name": user.get('last_name')
+                })
+        else:
+            result.update({"error": f'This phone number matched multiple Telegram accounts, which is unexpected. Please contact the developer: contact-tech@bellingcat.com'})
+
     except TypeError as e:
         result.update({"error": f"TypeError: {e}. --> The error might have occurred due to the inability to delete the {phone_number=} from the contact list."})
     except Exception as e:
@@ -41,14 +49,14 @@ def get_names(client, phone_number):
     return result
 
 
-def validate_users(client, phone_numbers):
-    '''
-    The function uses the get_api_response function to first check if the user exists and if it does, then it returns the first user name and the last user name.
-    '''
+def validate_users(client: TelegramClient, phone_numbers: str) -> dict:
+    """
+    Takes in a string of comma separated phone numbers and tries to get the user information associated with each phone number. 
+    """
     if not phone_numbers or not len(phone_numbers):
         phone_numbers = input('Enter the phone numbers to check, separated by commas: ')
     result = {}
-    phones = [p.strip() for p in phone_numbers.split(",")]
+    phones = [re.sub(r"\s+", "", p, flags=re.UNICODE) for p in phone_numbers.split(",")]
     try:
         for phone in phones:
             if phone not in result:
@@ -59,7 +67,7 @@ def validate_users(client, phone_numbers):
     return result
 
 
-def login(api_id, api_hash, phone_number):
+def login(api_id: str | None, api_hash: str | None, phone_number: str | None) -> TelegramClient:
     """Create a telethon session or reuse existing one"""
     print('Logging in...', end="", flush=True)
     API_ID = api_id or os.getenv('API_ID') or input('Enter your API ID: ')
@@ -77,22 +85,52 @@ def login(api_id, api_hash, phone_number):
     print("Done.")
     return client
 
-def show_results(output, res):
+def show_results(output: str, res: dict) -> None:
     print(json.dumps(res, indent=4))
     with open(output, 'w') as f:
         json.dump(res, f, indent=4)
         print(f"Results saved to {output}")
 
-@click.command()
+
+@click.command(epilog='Check out the docs at github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker for more information.')
 @click.option('--phone-numbers', '-p', help='List of phone numbers to check, separated by commas', type=str)
-@click.option('--api-id', help='Your API_ID', type=str)
-@click.option('--api-hash', help='Your API_HASH', type=str)
-@click.option('--api-phone-number', help='Your phone_number', type=str)
-@click.option('--output', help='results filename, default to results.json', default="results.json", type=str)
-def main_entrypoint(phone_numbers, api_id, api_hash, api_phone_number, output):
-    """Check to see if one or more phone numbers belong to a valid Telegram account"""
+@click.option('--api-id', help='Your Telegram app api_id', type=str, prompt="Enter your Telegram App app_id", envvar='API_ID', show_envvar=True)
+@click.option('--api-hash', help='Your Telegram app api_hash', type=str, prompt="Enter your Telegram App api_hash", hide_input=True, envvar='API_HASH', show_envvar=True)
+@click.option('--api-phone-number', help='Your phone number', type=str, prompt="Enter the number associated with your Telegram account", envvar='PHONE_NUMBER', show_envvar=True)
+@click.option('--output', help='Filename to store results', default="results.json", show_default=True, type=str)
+def main_entrypoint(phone_numbers: str, api_id: str, api_hash: str, api_phone_number: str, output: str) -> None:
+    """
+    Check to see if one or more phone numbers belong to a valid Telegram account.
+
+    \b
+    Prerequisites:
+    1. A Telegram account with an active phone number
+    2. A Telegram App api_id and App api_hash, which you can get by creating
+       a Telegram App @ https://my.telegram.org/apps
+
+    \b
+    Note:
+    If you do not want to enter the API ID, API hash, or phone number associated with
+    your Telegram account on the command line, you can store these values in a `.env`
+    file located within the same directory you run this command from.
+
+    \b
+    // .env file example:
+    API_ID=12345678
+    API_HASH=1234abcd5678efgh1234abcd567
+    PHONE_NUMBER=+15555555555
+
+    See the official Telegram docs at https://core.telegram.org/api/obtaining_api_id for more information on obtaining an API ID.
+
+    \b
+    Recommendations:
+    Telegram recommends entering phone numbers in international format
+    +(country code)(city or carrier code)(your number)
+    i.e. +491234567891
+
+    """
     client = login(api_id, api_hash, api_phone_number)
-    res =  validate_users(client, phone_numbers)
+    res = validate_users(client, phone_numbers)
     show_results(output, res)