Hello, the method for building USSD menus as shown in the docs (using a series of if/switch statements on the input) seems tedious and impractical in the case of complex nested menus.

I've written a simple library that is compatible with the Africastalking API to make this easier. It takes a different approach by treating each menu screen as state and the whole ussd session as state machine, and uses rules based on input values, regular expressions or functions to link two states.

Here's the the library (ussd-menu-builder). The library is usable but lacks unit tests and has an incomplete documentation. I intend to finish those up before pushing to npm.

I thought I'd share it with you guys. You probably won't add it to your official NodeJs library cause it maybe a bit opinionated, but you could use it when giving tutorials or other projects.

I copied the exact code from the README. But still didn't work.

There are multiple broken links on the README.md file.
This is because ATs documentation link changed:

-https://docs.africastalking.com/
+https://developers.africastalking.com/

The link to npm is also broken

There are some few dependencies that require upgrading. As shown by the image below the libraries using hapi require an update

Maybe we can set a response of 200 when replying; without this, the AT API retries to send a DLR or message to US even when we received; but didn't acknowledge.

I need Africa's to be able to import africastalking on Deno as a third party package. I'll be glad if anyone made it happen.

I rannpm audit on my project and encountered the following vulnerabilities as seen in the image below; Is there a recommended plan to fix it? Maybe, you could run npm audit to view possible vulnerabilities and fixes.

High vulnerability with unirest -> hawk -> cryptiles. If this is something we think won't break if we upgrade, can submit the pull request. Any info before I attempt that?

It would be amazing if we have typescript support for the nodejs sdk, currently it doesn't have the support for nodejs

This will be even much more elaborate than it's now : ) An example is

├── app
│   ├── build
│   ├── node_modules
│   ├── src
│       ├── final
│       ├── work
|          ├── step-1
|          ├── step-2
|          ├── step-n
|          ├── step-final

Line 21 of airtime.js in the lib folder of the npm package has a bug, or rather the code in the said line 21 cannot work with the code on the documentation.

I noticed in SMS.send and other api wrapper methods you're calling _validateParams() outside the Promise wrapper and throwing an error. This means the user has to wrap the method call in try-catch block to prevent a crash but still has to check for other errors using the catch() hook of the Promise, this seems counter-intuitive. Wouldn't it be better to just include the _validateParams() call within the promise block so that an error thrown is handled in the promise's catch() hook?
Maybe you can add a property to the error thrown to indicate that it was a validation error.

Hello Africastalking,

I am having an issue with my node application which gives me the error:

/var/www/server/node_modules/africastalking/lib/customAxios/airtime.js:7
...data,
^^^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token ...

I think it refers to the three dots before the variable data.

How can this be solved because it runs okay on my localhost but when I try to run it on the server it gives me the said error.

Thank you.

Hello, I would like to use the airtime API but noticed it's not yet implemented. I would like to add the implementation and make a pull request if you don't mind.

I'm going to implement the airtime.send(options) as shown in the repository doc.

Do you have any coding guide or convention I ought to follow?

In a fresh clone of the AT nodejs API, there is one test failure for AfricasTalking.fetchAccount().

Steps to Reproduce

1. git clone https://github.com/AfricasTalkingLtd/africastalking-node.js
2. npm install
3. npm test

Expected Result

  15 passing (16s)

Actual Result

  14 passing (14s)
  1 failing

  1) Account fetched account info:
     Error: timeout of 5000ms exceeded. Ensure the done() callback is being called in this test.

I get an undefined with

    var endSession = false;
    var message = '';

    var sessionId = params.sessionId;
    var serviceCode = params.serviceCode;
    var phoneNumber = params.phoneNumber;

    console.log(sessionId, serviceCode, phoneNumber, params.text);

result:

undefined '*384*306#' '+254701435178' '1'

Hello, i really wanna learn to use your api, but i cant get over this one stubborn error. what i'm i doing wrong?

• It can be good if we can add a CI/CD process to run code/tests online.

Problem

Contributors to the AfricaIsTalking API would benefit from having clear and comprehensive guidelines on how to contribute effectively to the project. Currently, there is no contribution guide available, making it challenging for newcomers to get started and for existing contributors to follow best practices consistently.

Solution

We propose creating a Contribution Guide for the AfricaIsTalking API. This guide will provide step-by-step instructions and best practices for contributing to the project. It should cover topics such as:

• Setting up the development environment
• How to submit bug reports and feature requests
• Guidelines for writing and formatting code
• The pull request process
• Code review expectations
• Testing and quality assurance procedures
• Licensing and code of conduct

Benefits

A well-structured contribution guide will have several advantages:

1. Onboarding New Contributors: Newcomers will find it easier to understand the project's workflow and coding standards, reducing the barrier to entry.

2. Consistency: Contributors will follow a consistent process when submitting contributions, making it easier for maintainers to review and merge changes.

3. Improved Code Quality: By providing guidelines for writing code and running tests, we can ensure that contributions meet the project's quality standards.

4. Community Growth: A clear contribution guide can attract more contributors, fostering a healthy and active open-source community.

Acceptance Criteria:

• Create a new file named CONTRIBUTING.md in the project repository.
• Document the contribution process, coding standards, and testing procedures in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
• Include information on how to report issues and request features.
• Mention the project's code of conduct and licensing.
• Ensure that the guide is clear, concise, and easy to follow.
• Share the contribution guide with the project's community through relevant channels.

Additional Information:

We believe that providing a contribution guide will greatly enhance the development experience for all contributors and help the AfricaIsTalking API project thrive. Your input and contributions to creating this guide are highly appreciated.

Please feel free to discuss and offer suggestions related to this issue. Thank you for your support and dedication to the project!

It would be interesting to make use of ES6 features already available on stable node such as generators

node v5 advisory on the README? I think we'll just make the move this early and ignore the es5 branch.

and just maybe have this instead:

Ubuntu

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_5.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Other platforms

https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/

are we shooting for backward compatibility?

Hi,

I just upgraded from 0.0.2 to 0.0.9 so that I can use the sandbox.

When I instrument my app using my production API account + key, it works great:

c2-dev-6 { username: 'ABC',
c2-dev-6   apiKey: 'XXX',
c2-dev-6   format: 'json',
c2-dev-6   sandbox: 'false' }

But when I instrument my app using my sandbox API account + key, I get 401 when I send a message:

c2-dev-7 { username: 'ABC',
c2-dev-7   apiKey: 'YYY',
c2-dev-7   format: 'json',
c2-dev-7   sandbox: true }

Any thoughts? I've tried passing true as both as a string and boolean.

Hey,

Getting the following error whenever I try sending a message either through the sandbox api and even the production one:

{ Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND api.africastalking.com api.africastalking.com:443
    at errnoException (dns.js:28:10)
    at GetAddrInfoReqWrap.onlookup [as oncomplete] (dns.js:76:26)
  code: 'ENOTFOUND',
  errno: 'ENOTFOUND',
  syscall: 'getaddrinfo',
  hostname: 'api.africastalking.com',
  host: 'api.africastalking.com',
  port: 443 }

Thanks!

@aksalj The voice call promise would reject as the return status from AT's API would be 200 instead of 201. I edited the test to cater for both responses. This shouldn't be a problem as both 200 and 201 technically refer to successful requests.

Finish up on premium SMS and implement payments.

• Implement premiumSMS
• Implement checkout (C2B) @pbombo

payments

var options = {
  'phoneNumber': '+2547XXXXXXXX',  
  'productId': 'ATX_Id324324153452', 
  'amount': 'KES 2000' 
}

Payment.send(options)
  .then(success)
  .catch(error);

For one of my project, I want to send different messages to different numbers simultaneously, for instance,
when a loan is given out, a message (you have recieved a loan of <some amount> from person X is sent to the borrower, and another sent to the lender (You have sent <some amount> to person Y).
But africastalking seems not to have that options

What I propose could enable such flexibility;

import AfricasTalking from "africastalking";

const africasTalking = new AfricasTalking({
  username: "sandbox",
  apiKey: process.env.AFRICA_TALKING_KEY
});

const sms = africasTalking.SMS;

...

  sms.send([
   {
    to: phone1,
    message: `message to ${recipient1}.`
   },
   {
     to: phone2,
    message: `message to ${recipient2}.`
   }
  ])

...

what africastalking accepts;

  sms.send(
   {
    to: phone1,
    message: `message to ${recipient1}.`
   }
 )

Hello,

How does the SMS service deal with different fonts? When i use certain fonts, the message that's sent is in a different form. Some fonts are seemingly being parsed/escaped by ATs validation layer such that a string like 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼 is sent as d 'd 2d 1d 1d. How can I solve this? Using nodeJS for the backend

@aksalj can we setup git hooks on npm; to update the package and version on a git push?

The test suite in npm test currently does not validate that the responses are handled for all libraries. Only the USSD API makes use of the supertest server to mock API responses. This ought to be extended to all libraries. From what I can tell, the following libraries need API response testing:

• SMS
• Account
• Airtime
• USSD

It doesn't look like the voice.js or payment.js libraries are tested.

Issue Description

The Voice API currently specifies the CallTo parameter as an array of phone numbers in comma-separated string format, which can be passed to the options object as shown below:

 const options = {
      callFrom: "+256******", // Set your Africa's Talking phone number in international format
      callTo: ["+2567*******", "+256*******"], // Set the numbers you want to call to in a comma-separated list
    };

However, when initiating a call, it appears that the API is only dialing the last number in the array, rather than calling all the numbers as expected.

Expected Behavior

The expected behavior is for the callTo parameter to facilitate calling all the numbers listed in the array, ensuring that each number in the list receives a call.

the voice helpers are very interesting; what approach do we take? plain xml response? or command to construct xml ? The helpers will be great, this will make voice so easy 👍

voice.say("X is a letter! It's not a word") 

Here the approach is to wrap say around root xml response - what of nested commands? and attributes, how to create the xml response?

Of course this is for incoming calls, with the callback url handler.
voice.call is ok. I don't think there's much there. I mean initiating a call.

voice.say("say something", voice="woman") // ?

Say then Play a URL

/*
<Say>Please listen to our awesome record</Say>
<Play url="http://www.myvoicemailserver.com/audio/vmail.wav"/>
*/
voice.say("Hi, listen to", play=url)

and how do we wrap getDigits when we say?

voice.say("say something I'm giving ... ", voice=woman, getDigits=True, record=True) // ?
// sadly without named parameters
// also, recording - maybe an attribute to be set

call redirect?

if (dtmfDigit === '9') {
   voice.redirect('http://some_url_callback');
}

then, this would be expected.

<Response>
  <Dial phoneNumbers="+254711XXXYYY,+254733YYYZZZ,[email protected]" ringBackTone="http://mymediafile.com/playme.mp3" record="true" sequential="true"/>
</Response>

maps to

// callerId specific to calling out from SIP
voice.dial(phoneNumbers=phones, maxDurationInSec=10, record=True, 
                ringBackTone="some_url", sequential="True", callerId="some_num");

Problem with this is that we need all possible mappings, and I think there's many cases, we might miss a few and not generate a proper functional XML string, but the XML response will still work.

So, basically we generate this by passing attributes on a command, is this a good approach?
we also need a SIP section, will look at this later.

I am using "africastalking": "^0.5.3"

With sandbox username and API Keys, I am able to send SMS. But when I swap the credentials to LIVE DATA, it returns The supplied authentication is invalid

Reverting back to SANDBOX environment data works well.

Great Library 😃
Though am running into an error when trying to send a simple sms. Seems to be something when returning a promise.
Here is the error
.then(function(s) {
^

TypeError: Cannot read property 'then' of undefined
Code:
var AfricasTalking = require('africastalking')(options);
var sms = AfricasTalking.SMS;
var opts = {
to: 0704654445,
message: 'Server is Running'
};
console.log(opts);

sms.send(opts)
.then(function(s) {
console.log(s);
})
.catch(function(error) {
console.log(error);
});

I have issues when building app in production using africas talking api

e.js:56
        throw new Error(
              ^
Error: Attempt to change mapping for "form" extension from "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" to "application/x-www-form-urlencoded". Pass `force=true` to allow this, otherwise remove "form" from the list of extensions for "application/x-www-form-urlencoded".
    at Mime.define (/Users/mussa/Documents/Source/Vircap/vircap-backend/node_modules/mime/Mime.js:56:15)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/mussa/Documents/Source/Vircap/vircap-backend/node_modules/unirest/index.js:26:6)

Will there be possible support for TypeScript in the future ? Also are PR's welcome from non-employees ?

Need a demo of a callback url in action, Im not sure I understand how the Callback URL works in node. The docs only have one demo and its in PHP only.

Updated to version v0.5.0 and on sending sms i get error The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled
but on reverting back to 0.4.1 everything works okay

The AfricasTalking.fetchAccount() call seems to work on the sandbox, but returns a 401 error on production apps. I think it's due to the header being apiKey instead of Apikey (lib/index.js line 77)

We have been using the SDK for quite a while now, but of recent some real security issues has been popping up due to some outdated dependencies within the grpc dependency SDK

Below are list of vulnerable dependencies in grpc:

1. mime
2. hoek
3. tunnel-agent
4. minimist
5. cryptiles

Please I urge you guys to investigate the above-listed dependencies which require urgent update due to the severity of the vulnerability

I use nextjs + express, It returns the same error titled above
I use your exact example

Background

• A previous commit introduced a bug into the SDK.
• The commit, among other things, introduced a custom Axios module for making API requests, defined as follows:

// africastalking-node.js/lib/customAxios/index.js (line 5)
function initializeAxios (config, production = false) {
  // ...
}

• By itself, this is okay. However, in the lib/airtime.js and lib/application.js files, the implementation is the cause of the bug:

// africastalking-node.js/lib/airtime.js (line 27)
const customAxios = initializeAxios(this.config, false);

• This sets the baseUrl to the sandbox version at all times.

Rectification

• Need to refactor the custom Axios module into something like this:

function initializeAxios (config) {
  const isSandbox = config.username === 'sandbox';
}

• And in individual files:

const customAxios = initializeAxios(this.config);

When installing the package just this morning, there was one critical security warning and several other deprecation warnings. The security one might be important to fix.

warning africastalking > unirest > request > [email protected]: This module moved to @hapi/hawk. Please make sure to switch over as this distribution is no longer supported and may contain bugs and critical security issues.
warning africastalking > unirest > request > [email protected]: Use uuid module instead
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > boom > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > cryptiles > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > [email protected]: This module moved to @hapi/sntp. Please make sure to switch over as this distribution is no longer supported and may contain bugs and critical security issues.
warning africastalking > unirest > request > hawk > sntp > [email protected]: This version has been deprecated in accordance with the hapi support policy (hapi.im/support). Please upgrade to the latest version to get the best features, bug fixes, and security patches. If you are unable to upgrade at this time, paid support is available for older versions (hapi.im/commercial).