Cookbook: IRCClient

The Interface

The IRCClient module provides an inbox/outbox interface to IRC. Call SimpleIRCClientPrefab to obtain a connection to an IRC server.

Sending messages

Send tuples in the form *(cmd, [arg1] [,arg2] [,arg3...])* to SimpleIRCClientPrefab's "inbox". *cmd* should be an IRC command specified in RFC 1459 or RFC 2812. The first parameter specified by the RFCs should be *arg1*, the second should be *arg2*, and so on. Example messages to "inbox"::

• ('NICK', 'Zorknpals')
• ('USER', 'jlei', 'nohost', 'noserver', 'Kamaelia IRC Client')
• ('JOIN', '#kamaelia')
• ('PRIVMSG', '#kamtest', 'hey, how's it going?')
• ('TOPIC', '#cheese', "Mozzerella vs. Parmesan")
• ('QUIT')
• ('QUIT', "Konversation terminated!")
• ('BERSERKER', "Lvl. 10")

Note that "BERSERKER" is not a recognized IRC command. IRC_Client will not
complain about this, as it treats commands uniformly, but you might get
an error 421, "ERR_UNKNOWNCOMMAND" back from the server.

Sending CTCP commands

IRC_Client also handles a few CTCP commands:

:ACTION:
("ME", channel-or-user, the-action-that-you-do).
:MSG:
If you use the outformat function defined here, 'MSG' commands are
treated as 'PRIVMSGs'.

No other CTCP commands are implemented.

A simple client that logs in

...and spams the channel #kamtest with 10 "Hello world" messages. (It's okay because no one else is ever on this channel)

class Spammer(component):
    def main(self):
        """spams channel #kamtest"""
        self.send(("NICK", "TheKamaeliaBot"))
        self.send(("USER", "KamaeliaIRC", "stuff", "stuff", "Kamaelia IRC tester"))
        self.send(("JOIN", "#kamtest"))
    for _ in range(10):
        self.send(("PRIVMSG", "#kamtest", "Hello world"))
        yield 1

Pipeline(Spammer(), SimpleIRCClientPrefab()).run()

Now you will want to receive messages too, so your client isn't doomed to be a spammer. Lucky for you, SimpleIRCClientPrefab transmits IRC messages it receives in the form (cmd, sender, receiver, anything else). Simply link your component up to its "outbox" to receive these messages.

Logger

Logs in to a channel and writes all IRC traffic it hears to a text file.

from Kamaelia.File.Writing import SimpleFileWriter
from Kamaelia.Chassis.Graphline import Graphline
from Axon.Component import component
import IRCClient

class BasicLogger(component):

    Outboxes = {"irc" : "to IRC, for user responses and login",
                "outbox" : "What we're interested in, the traffic over the channel",
                "signal" : "Shutdown handling in the future",
                }

    def __init__(self, channel, name, formatter=IRCClient.outformat):
        super(BasicLogger, self).__init__()
        self.channel = channel
        self.format = formatter 
        self.name = name
        
    def login(self):
        """registers with the IRC server"""
        self.send(("NICK", self.name), "irc")
        self.send(("USER", self.name, self.name, self.name, self.name), "irc")
        self.send(("JOIN", self.channel), "irc")
        
    def main(self):
        "Main loop"
        self.login()
        while True:
            yield 1 
            while self.dataReady("inbox"):
                data = self.recv("inbox")
                formatted_data = self.format(data)
                if formatted_data:
                    self.send(formatted_data, "outbox")
                    self.respondToPings(data) 

    def respondToPings(self, msg):
        if msg[0] == 'PING':
            self.send(('PONG', msg[1]), 'irc')
            self.send("Sent PONG to %s \n" % msg[1], "outbox")


#now define a prefab to wire everything up

def Logger(channel, name, server='irc.freenode.net'):
    return Graphline(irc = IRCClient.SimpleIRCClientPrefab(server),
                     logger = BasicLogger(channel, name),
                     log = SimpleFileWriter("%s_log.txt" % channel.lstrip('#')),
                     linkages = {("logger", "irc") : ("irc", "inbox"),
                                 ("irc", "outbox") : ("logger", "inbox"),
                                 ("logger", "outbox") : ("log", "inbox"),
                                 }

                     )

Logger('#test', 'coolLoggerDude').run() #we're assuming that no other user has this nickname! There's no error checking otherwise. 

That's all there is! Have fun using the IRC components!