The base for all our operations is the [telegram bot api documentations](https://core.telegram.org/bots/api) . This 220 kB monster of a website will tell us almost everything we need to know about how to use the api.
It is split into multiple sections. We can ignore the sections *Authorizing your bot", "Making Requests" and "Getting Updates". These things are done for us by the library.
So, let's see how we can send a poll for example. First, lets take a look at the *Available Methods*. It already gives us a bunch of send methods
One of them sticks out to us. *sendPoll* looks promising, and when we take a look at the description
`Use this method to send a native poll. On success, the sent Message is returned`
That looks like the thing we need. So let's see what we need to send it
So as we can see, we need to set 3 things. The id of the chat we want to send it to, a question as a string and an Array of Strings.
This will result in an anonymous regular type poll without mutliselection looking like this when sent:
We can customize a bunch of other things like create quizzes, send closed polls or reply to a certain message. Now, how is this api object mapped in the library? How *do* we create a poll?
Pretty straight forward. We take our libary, look for the "Go To Class" or "SearchClass" option and type in the name of the Method we are looking for. This will quickly yield a "SendPoll" method.
**Every** Method, listed under *Available Methods* has such a Class. And if we go ahead and scroll down a bit we find a set of fields for the class
This is a lot at first glance, but if we remember back at the table from the documentation, everything is there. We have the 3 required fields on top (chatId, question and the list of options and everything) else below
Let's reproduce our poll from earlier. We create the Method object and set all required fields. This particular class already allows us to set everything in a constructor, this is normally the case for required fields. All other fields can be set by using the setter method (**Attention** Calling a setter overrides the last value in a field. You can call setter multiple times on a method object, but it's normally not correct to do so)
```java
AbsSender ourBot = getOurBot();
List<String> options = new List<>();
options.add("Yes");
options.add("No");
// Let's just assume we get the chatMessage as a parameter. For example from the message received, or from a database
SendPoll ourPoll = new SendPoll(someChatId, "Some Question", options);
ourBot.execute(ourPoll);
```
This will send the message as expected to telegram and finally to the given chat. But what about return values?
If we go back to the documentation and look at the description it says:
`Use this method to send a native poll. On success, the sent Message is returned`
Message links us to the Message object. An object so big that i wont be showing it's documentation in this guide. It can be found here: [Telegram Bot Api: Message Object](https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#message)
Just the documentation tells us that it returns a Message object. How do we get that object? Easy. Execute() returns it.
```java
Message thePollMessage = ourBot.execute(ourPoll);
```
This again works for any method that returns a value. SendMessage, SendPhoto, SendPoll, GetMe, GetChatMember etc.
## But what about Photos?
Some methods aren't quite as straight forward to use. Let's take a bit of time to look at methods that upload files to telegram. Namely: SendPhoto, SendAnimation, SendSticker, SendDocument, SendVideo, SendVideoNote, SendAudio and SendVoice. All of these require what telegram calls an "InputFile". This can either be a FileId of a previous send file, a url to the file on a public sever or the actual file. In the Library this is mapped using different set methods in the above classes. Currently sending by FileId, sending by java.io.File and sending by InputStream is supported. Sending by URL is not supported as of writing this guide
### FileId
Using a fileId is pretty straight forward. The FileId is returned from telegram upon sending a File. Just set the given FileId and execute the method. Make sure that the FileId actually point to a file of the correct type
### File
The classic approach of creating a java.io.File by Path on your hard drive or by loading a classpath resource.
### InputStream
Sending a file by InputStream will cause the library to read the stream and then converting it into the Request. It's the same as sending a java.io.File, but more convenient some times.
For more information on how to send Files, take a look at the [FAQ: How to send Photos](../FAQ.md). The basic concept will be the same across all Methods.
