python - get the name of a channel using discord.py

Question

how do I get the name of a channel so that this bot will work on any server its put on with no changes to code necessary? ( in the code where I put "what do I put here" is where I want the name to be in a variable)Thanks

from discord.ext.commands import Bot
import time, asyncio

TOKEN = 'Its a secret'
BOT_PREFIX = ["!"]
client = Bot(command_prefix=BOT_PREFIX)




@client.event
async def on_message(message):
    if message.author == client.user:
        return




@client.event
async def on_ready():
    print('Logged in as')
    print(client.user.name)
    print(client.user.id)
    print('------')
    await start()
    while True:
        currentTime = time.strftime("%M%S", time.gmtime(time.time()))
        if currentTime == "30:00":
            await start()
        await asyncio.sleep(1)


async def start():
    mainChannel = #What do i put here?
    print(mainChannel.name)
    await client.send_message(mainChannel, "Starting countdown", tts = True)



client.run(TOKEN)

Answer 1

Getting channel from ID (Recommended)

First, get the ID of the channel (Right click the channel and select "Copy ID")

Second, put the ID in the following code:

client.get_channel("ID")

For example:

client.get_channel("182583972662")

Note: The channel ID is a string in discord.py async, and an integer in rewrite

(Thanks to Ari24 for pointing this out)

Getting channel from name (Not reccomended)

First, get the server using either:

server = client.get_server("ID")

OR

for server in client.servers:
    if server.name == "Server name":
        break

Second, get the channel:

for channel in server.channels:
    if channel.name == "Channel name":
        break

---

What not to do

Try to always use the ID for each server, as it is much faster and more efficient.

Try to avoid using discord.utils.get, such as:

discord.utils.get(guild.text_channels, name="Channel name")

Although it does work, it is bad practise as it has to iterate through the entire list of channels. This can be slow and take much more time than using the ID.

From the discord API docs:

discord.utils.get is a helper that returns the first element in the iterable that meets all the traits passed in attrs