WhatsApp Bot

This is, basically, a very simple bot made to send messages automatically to a list of contacts via WhatsApp Web.

The list of contacts is read from a .vcf file.

This project was built using:

• python 3.6
• Selenium
  Running the bot it's just as simples as using one of the following commands:
• py.exe bot.py
• py bot.py
• python bot.py
• python3.6 bot.py

After running the code, you'll see this screen: Since the moment the code starts running, the program will wait for 15 seconds before star executing comands. So, if it is taking you longer then that to log in WhatsApp Web, try increasing the waiting time.

When you're in, the bot will start tipping the names where the red arrow is pointing at:

And then types the message and sends it:

And then it repeats the process untill the end of the contact list.

When it gets to the end, the bot logs out of the WhatsApp Web session.

Set Things Up Before Get To Work

In order to use this bot, you'll have to install selenium and set the webdrivers up.

Installing Selenium

Use one of the following commands:

• pip install selenium
• python -m pip install selenium

Setting WebDrivers Up

Mozilla Firefox

If you're using Mozilla Firefox, you'll have to download geckdriver. So, click on one of the options bellow and it'll redirect you to the download.

geckodriver-v0.26.0-win32.zip

geckodriver-v0.26.0-win64.zip

After downloading the file, extract it.

Now, on the command line, type: mv geckodriver.exe /usr/local/bin, and in case that one doesn't work, try mv geckodriver.exe /usr/bin.

Now you're all set.

Google Chrome

The first thing that you'll have to do is check your Google Chrome version.

To do so, follow these steps:

"Is this important?". Yes sir, it is. Thing can get really messed up later if you don't have a webdriver's version that corresponds to your browser's version.

Next step is going to this website https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads (Go ahead! Click it!) and look for the WebDriver's version you should download. In my case, it'll be the ChromeDriver 81.0.4044.20.

And now download the zip file:

Now, the steps are pretty much the same we followed to config geckodriver.

• Extract the file;
• Use the command: mv chromedriver.exe /usr/local/bin or mv chromedriver.exe /usr/bin.

How Does It Work?

The program opens the contact file, which in this case is named as contacts.vcf, and appends all its lines to a temporary list - temp_list.

Once the contacts file is a vcf file, its content format is something like this:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=45=6D=69=6C=79=20=E2=9D=A4=EF=B8=8F;=41=6D=61=6E=64=61;;;
FN;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=41=6D=61=6E=64=61=20=45=6D=69=6C=79=20=E2=9D=A4=EF=B8=8F
TEL;CELL:+111
TEL;CELL:+111
TEL;HOME:+111
END:VCARD
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:(NOS);Marinete;;;
FN:Marinete (NOS)
TEL;CELL:+111
TEL;CELL:+111
TEL;HOME:+111
END:VCARD

Notice that the informations we're looking for, the names, succeed the elements FN: or FN;. And yes. That ' : ' / ' ; ' makes a great difference here.

FN; is followed by names with characters that are not in the ASCII table, so they'll have to be decoded later.

FN:, on the other hand, is followed by names with characters that are in the ASCII table.

Regardless the way that the names are encoded at, they are all treated the same way, at first. The find() is used to look after the temp_list element that contains FN: or FN;.

If a FN: is found, the program will simply append it (with its follwed by information - the name) to the name_list, but without the FN:.

To make it even easier to see, here's an simple example:

Consedering the following example as the contact file content.

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Diniz;Arthur;;;
FN:Arthur Diniz
TEL;CELL:+111
TEL;CELL:111
TEL;HOME:111
X-GROUP-MEMBERSHIP:My Contacts
X-GROUP-MEMBERSHIP:My Contacts

All lines will be appended to the temp_list and then, only the line with FN: will be appended to the final name_list, removing, of course, the FN: from it.

Even though, when it comes to FN;, the program have to deal with the info in a really different way.

The first reason to that it's the way the information is presented:

=41=6D=61=6E=64=61=20=45=6D=69=6C=79=20=E2=9D=A4=EF=B8=8F

And the second reason is the way the .vcf file deals with long lines. Instead of having all the encoded information in one line. We have this:

=50=54=2D=43=6F=6E=74=61=64=6F=72=61=20=46=65=72=6E=61=6E=64=61=20=49=

=6E=74=65=72=6D=61=63=68=C3=A9.

In order to act accordly to these two ways of providing information, there's a if statement to look after a "=" at the end of the first line. If that checks out, the program will add to the encoded_list two lines: the one with the FN:, that will end in "=", and the next line too, that starts with "=".

So, the encoded_list will be like this:

['FN;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=50=54=2D=43=6F=6E=74=61=64=6F=72=61=20=46=65=72=6E=61=6E=64=61=20=49=', '=6E=74=65=72=6D=61=63=68=C3=A9']

Although, this list still has some unnecessary information, such as:

FN;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE: and the "=" signal at the beggining of the last element of the list.

So, the program removes the "=" and joins the two elements of the list on a string, removing this part:

FN;CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:

And then, that'll be a nice long string, called encoded_name, with the whole information essential information for decoding. And that's what the program does next and appends that decoding string to a list:

quopri.decodestring(encoded_name)).decode('utf-8')

And another little problem that make come up is: emojis.

If one of the names in the contact file has a emoji in it, the most likely is that the bot will fail. But i cannot tell for sure cause i haven't many tests with this, but as least the "red heart" emoji was covered.

The last possible scenario for names in the contact file is this:

END:VCARD
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:;teste2;;;
FN_GROUP:teste2
END:VCARD

There is no FN: or FN;, but there is a FN_GROUP:. That tag is for group names, as you might probably tell right?. And it'll work pretty much like the other tags we've seen before.

Conclusion

This bot still needs plenty of testing and improvement, and I am oppened to some constructive criticism for sure, and willing to make some modifications to the code based you the community suggestions.

This rep has a file named as contacts.vcf with an example of the format that the contacts/groups will follow. One little note here: this bot was built to work on Mozilla Firefox (bot.py file) and Google Chrome (bot_chrome.py), so it'll definitely not work on different browsers, etc. At least for now.

Bugs

Still didn't figure out how to fix it, but when the bot looks for a name and it is so large that it won't even been shown entirely, the program fails in fiding the element.

I might fix this bug in the next few days. For now, avoid large names.