tdlight/README.md
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TDLib

TDLib (Telegram Database library) is a cross-platform library for building Telegram clients. It can be easily used from almost any programming language.

Table of Contents

Features

TDLib has many advantages. Notably TDLib is:

  • Cross-platform: TDLib can be used on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, Windows Phone, WebAssembly, watchOS, tvOS, Tizen, Cygwin. It should also work on other *nix systems with or without minimal effort.
  • Multilanguage: TDLib can be easily used with any programming language that is able to execute C functions. Additionally it already has native Java (using JNI) bindings and .NET (using C++/CLI and C++/CX) bindings.
  • Easy to use: TDLib takes care of all network implementation details, encryption and local data storage.
  • High-performance: in the Telegram Bot API, each TDLib instance handles more than 23000 active bots simultaneously.
  • Well-documented: all TDLib API methods and public interfaces are fully documented.
  • Consistent: TDLib guarantees that all updates are delivered in the right order.
  • Reliable: TDLib remains stable on slow and unreliable Internet connections.
  • Secure: all local data is encrypted using a user-provided encryption key.
  • Fully-asynchronous: requests to TDLib don't block each other or anything else, responses are sent when they are available.

Examples and documentation

Take a look at our examples. See our Getting Started tutorial for a description of basic TDLib concepts. See description of our JSON, C++, Java and .NET interfaces. See the td_api.tl scheme or the automatically generated HTML documentation for a list of all available TDLib methods and classes.

Dependencies

TDLib depends on:

  • C++14 compatible compiler (Clang 3.4+, GCC 4.9+, MSVC 19.0+ (Visual Studio 2015+), Intel C++ Compiler 17+)
  • OpenSSL
  • zlib
  • gperf (build only)
  • CMake (3.0.2+, build only)
  • PHP (optional, for documentation generation)
  • Doxygen (optional, for documentation generation)

Building

Install all TDLib dependencies as described in Installing dependencies. Then enter directory containing TDLib sources and compile them using CMake:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build .

To build TDLib on low memory devices you can use SplitSource.php before compiling main TDLib source code and compile only needed targets:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build . --target prepare_cross_compiling
cd ..
php SplitSource.php
cd build
cmake --build . --target tdjson
cmake --build . --target tdjson_static
cd ..
php SplitSource.php --undo

In our tests clang 6.0 with libc++ required less than 500 MB of RAM per file and GCC 6.3 used less than 1 GB of RAM per file.

Installing dependencies

macOS

  • Install the latest Xcode command line tools, for example, via xcode-select --install.
  • Install other dependencies, for example, using Homebrew:
brew install gperf cmake openssl
  • Build TDLib with CMake as explained in building. You will likely need to manually specify path to the installed OpenSSL to CMake, e.g.,
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=/usr/local/opt/openssl/ ..

Windows

  • Download and install Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 or later.
  • Download and install gperf. Add the path to gperf.exe to the PATH environment variable.
  • Install vcpkg.
  • Run the following commands to install TDLib dependencies using vcpkg:
cd <path to vcpkg>
.\vcpkg.exe install openssl:x64-windows openssl:x86-windows zlib:x64-windows zlib:x86-windows
  • Download and install CMake; choose "Add CMake to the system PATH" option while installing.
  • Build TDLib with CMake as explained in building, but instead of cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release .. use
cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path to vcpkg>\scripts\buildsystems\vcpkg.cmake ..

To build 64-bit TDLib using MSVC, you will need to additionally specify parameter -A x64 to CMake. To build TDLib in Release mode using MSVC, you will need to additionally specify parameter --config Release to the cmake --build . command.

Linux

Using in CMake C++ projects

For C++ projects that use CMake, the best approach is to build TDLib as part of your project or to use a prebuilt installation.

There are several libraries that you could use in your CMake project:

  • Td::TdJson, Td::TdJsonStatic — dynamic and static version of a JSON interface. This has a simple C interface, so it can be easily used with any programming language that is able to execute C functions. See td_json_client and td_log documentation for more information.
  • Td::TdStatic — static library with C++ interface for general usage. See Client and Log documentation for more information.
  • Td::TdCoreStatic — static library with low-level C++ interface intended mostly for internal usage. See ClientActor and Log documentation for more information.

For example, part of your CMakeLists.txt may look like this:

add_subdirectory(td)
target_link_libraries(YourTarget PRIVATE Td::TdStatic)

Or you could install TDLib and then reference it in your CMakeLists.txt like this:

find_package(Td 1.3.2 REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(YourTarget PRIVATE Td::TdStatic)

See example/cpp/CMakeLists.txt.

Using in Java projects

TDLib provides native Java interface through JNI. To enable it, specify option -DTD_ENABLE_JNI=ON to CMake.

See example/java for example of using TDLib from Java and detailed build and usage instructions.

Using in .NET projects

TDLib provides native .NET interface through C++/CLI and C++/CX. To enable it, specify option -DTD_ENABLE_DOTNET=ON to CMake. .NET Core doesn't support C++/CLI, so if .NET Core is used, then TDLib JSON interface should be used through P/Invoke instead.

See example/csharp for example of using TDLib from C# and detailed build and usage instructions. See example/uwp for example of using TDLib from C# UWP application and detailed build and usage instructions for Visual Studio Extension "TDLib for Universal Windows Platform".

When TDLib is built with TD_ENABLE_DOTNET option enabled, C++ documentation is removed from some files. You need to checkout these files to return C++ documentation back:

git checkout td/telegram/Client.h td/telegram/Log.h td/tl/TlObject.h

Using from other programming languages

TDLib provides efficient native C++, Java, and .NET interfaces. But for most use cases we suggest to use the JSON interface, which can be easily used with any programming language that is able to execute C functions. See td_json_client and td_log documentation for detailed JSON interface description, the td_api.tl scheme or the automatically generated HTML documentation for a list of all available TDLib methods and classes.

See example/python/tdjson_example.py and example/ruby/example.rb for examples of such usage.

License

TDLib is licensed under the terms of the Boost Software License. See LICENSE_1_0.txt for more information.