Use URL as an API method for Slackbot in Express js - express

Question

I am still new to javascript and trying to write a Slackbot in express js. I want to use the method defined in https://api.slack.com/methods/channels.history. How should this look syntacticly and how do I use it since the method is simply a URL?

Answer 1

You need to make an http request for the URL and you'll be returned a response with an object containing the status (ok:true|false), if there are more messages (has_more:true|false), and then an array of the actual messages (messages:array).
The response should look something like this:
{
has_more:true
messages:Array[100]
ok:true
}
The url that you make the get request to should look something like:
https://slack.com/api/channels.history?token=BOT_TOKEN&channel=CHANNEL_ID&pretty=1
Where BOT_TOKEN is the token attached to the bot you created, and CHANNEL_ID is the ID (not the name) of the channel whos history you want to get (9 uppercase alphanumeric characters, starts with a "C").
There are also a few other parameters you can include in the url. For example, "latest=", "oldest=", "inclusive=", "count=", and "unreads=". Details about those parameters can be found on the page you linked to (https://api.slack.com/methods/channels.history).
If you want to test it out in your browser's console, find a page where jQuery is loaded, open your dev tools and head into the console, and enter the following (with your bot token and channel id swapped in):
$.get('https://slack.com/api/channels.history?token=BOT_TOKEN&channel=CHANNEL_ID&pretty=1', function(response){console.log(response)});