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OS/2 Shareware BBS: 35 Internet
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UPDATES
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1999-02-23
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EPIC4pre2
*** News 05/28/98 -- /on connect now passes in three arguments
/on connect now offers the server's idea of what its name is
as $2. This may very well differ from what we think its name
is supposed to be.
*** News 05/29/98 -- New built in function $igetmatches() (Crackbaby)
Can someone tell me what this does?
*** News 05/29/98 -- New /on, /ON SEND_CTCP
When you send a CTCP request or a CTCP reply, this on will be
hooked. The arguments are:
$0 - "PRIVMSG" for requests, "NOTICE" for replies
$1 - Who the CTCP is being sent to
$2 - The type of CTCP being sent
$3- - (Optional) Argument(s) to the CTCP being sent
*** News 05/29/98 -- New built in function $servnum()
You give it a server name, it returns a server refnum for that
server. Returns -1 if the server isnt valid.
*** News 05/29/98 -- New type to /xdebug, "ALL"
If you specify "ALL" to /xdebug, it will turn on all the xdebug
options (as if you had specified the -x command line argument).
Using "-ALL" will turn off all xdebug options.
*** News 05/29/98 -- New flag to /who, -u-i
This flag will direct the client to add the 'x' argument to the
WHO protocol command, which is used by the undernet ircd servers
to give you invisible users. (They changed it so that operators only
see visible users now unless they use this special flag, so that the
server can whine to everyone else about how youre abusing your power.)
Dont use this server in any other situation, as itll probably
confuse the server or somethign.
*** News 05/29/98 -- $isconnected() no long requires an argument
If you dont specify an argument, 'from_server' is the default
*** News 05/29/98 -- /on dcc_connect compatability with BitchX
/on dcc_connect will hook with $1 being "SEND" first, and if you
dont grab that, it will offer the same exact thing with $1 being
"GET". This is for compatability with bitchx.
*** News 04/24/98 -- New built in command line argument (Texaco)
The -s command line flag is now honored, and it instructs the
client to not attempt to connect to a server on startup, but
instead show you your server list (so you can /server to one)
*** News 04/24/98 -- New built in function $gettmatch() (Colten)
Im not exactly sure what it does. Someone tell me please? =)
*** News 04/24/98 -- New noise operator for /on, /on ?type
This is kind of hard to explain, but here goes. You may now specify
an /on as having noisy type '?' (a question mark). If you use this
type, the /on will be executed silently (as if you had used /on ^type)
but whether or not the /on actually supresses the default action will
be determined by you at runtime. You are expected to /return a value
from the body of the /on. If you return 1, the default action *will*
be suppressed. If you return 0, the default action *will not* be
suppressed.
*** News 04/18/98 -- **hack** /on set "set-error *" is hooked by /set
Whenever the user does something that would cause the /set command
to emit an error, such as /set booya, where booya is not a valid
built in /set, you can hook /on set "set-error *" to suppress or
redefine the error message.
*** News 04/18/98 -- /bind'ings also follow your /package settings
So if you /unload package, then it will unload any /bind's that
were set in that package.
*** News 04/18/98 -- /on 433, /on 437, /on 438 now pass server as $0
These are the "nick collision" numerics, and now the server that
rejected you is passed as $0. I have cleared this change with Pana,
so BitchX will do this as well shortly.
*** News 04/18/98 -- New built in function $getsets()
If given an argument, it will return all the built in /set values
that are matched by the argument(s). If no arguments are given,
it will return all built in /set values.
*** News 04/18/98 -- Client automatically sends DCC REJECT when you exit
The client will automatically send CTCP DCC REJECTs on your behalf
whenever you close or abort a DCC conenction. This also will happen
when you /exit. This is so the remote peer will know that you will
not be getting the transfer, and if theyre an EPIC or BitchX client,
they will automatically close it for their end as well.
*** News 04/18/98 -- New /set, /SET SCROLLBACK_RATIO
You may now specify, in percentage points, how much of the screen you
want to scroll by every time you scroll forward or backward. This
value should be between 10 and 100, as the client silently truncates
it to those extremes if you dont.
*** News 04/18/98 -- /DCC GET nick * now works
You may specify a star as as special indication that you want to get
all of the files that have been offered by "nick".
*** News 04/18/98 -- New set, /SET DCC_AUTO_TIMEOUT (autoclose old dcc reqs)
If at least N number of seconds has passed (where N is the value of
this set) since you offered or were offered a DCC handshake , the
client will automatically close the offer on your behalf.
*** News 04/18/98 -- Doing /DCC SEND nick file wont emit error second time
Rather than emitting an unhelpful error message the second time you
try to /DCC SEND to someone (perhaps because the first time you did
the send the person wasnt on), duplicate /DCC SEND requests will now
send a "booster" message identical to the original.
(This works for /dcc chat nick as well)
*** News 04/18/98 -- /DCC RENAME can now rename chat connections
To rename a chat connection, specify the original nickname as '-chat'.
Then specify the old nick and the new nick. Something like this:
/dcc rename -chat oldnick newnick
*** News 04/18/98 -- DCC sliding window (/set dcc_sliding_window) modified
You may now set this to any value, no matter how abusrdly large, and
the client will keep up to this many packets outstanding, but never
so many that the client will block. Previously, if you set this value
too high, the client would block. Now it is safe to set this to
10,000, and acheive pretty good throughput.
*** News 04/18/98 -- New /dcc command, /dcc closeall
This closes all of your registered DCC connections, leaving your DCC
list very empty.
*** News 04/18/98 -- Windows may now have zero visible lines
You may now do /window size 0 to make a window that is nothing but
a status bar.
*** News 04/18/98 -- New /set, /SET ND_SPACE_MAX
For those who want to cap the number of non-destructive spaces that
may appear in any one line of output, you may set this variable to
control the number the client will parse before ignoring them. The
idea is simliar to /set tab_max
*** News 04/18/98 -- New flag to /xecho
If you use the double-hyphen flag to /xecho, it will stop all
argument parsing right there and take the rest of the arguments as
the text to be echoed. This is useful if the first word you want to
output starts with a hyphen
/xecho -- -s booya booya booya boo
outputs
-s booys booys booys boo
*** News 04/18/98 -- New flags to /lastlog
There is a new flag to /lastlog, -all which specifies that the given
lastlog level to search for is to be all qualifying levels. You can
turn off a given level by using a double hyphen (ala --msgs). So, if
you want to see everything in your lastlog EXCEPT your msgs, do this:
/lastlog -all --msgs
Another new flag is -reverse. The -reverse flag instructs the client
to start from the END of your lastlog and go BACKWARDS through the
lastlog when outputting.
*** News 04/02/98 -- New command, /userip
This is the front end to the Undernet command by the same name. It
is exactly like /userhost except it returns the ip address instead of
the named userhost.
*** News 04/02/98 -- New command, /usleep
The /usleep command pauses the client for some number of microseconds.
specified as the argument to the command. This command will probably
be rolled into /sleep at some future time, Watch for this.
*** News 04/02/98 -- $cparse() changed to support bitchx-syntax
If the first argument passed to $cparse() is an extended word, then
only the first argument will be used for the output, and any numeric
expandoes in the first argument will be expanded with the rest of the
arguments to $cparse() -- ala:
$cparse("This is a $0 test" cparse)
*** News 04/02/98 -- /window create now works properly for GNU screen
Kanan did the work for this, you can thank him. ;-)
*** News 04/02/98 -- You may now /msg a DCC RAW connection.
To send a message to a DCC RAW connection, simply msg to =NUM
where NUM is the number that was previously returned by $connect().
Obviously, you can also /query a DCC RAW connection with this, making
it usable for protocol connections to remote servers. I have fixed
and returned the 'mudirc' script, which demonstrates how to make epic
act as a relatively useful mud/moo client.
*** News 03/24/98 -- Scope resolution operator for variables
The client now supports a way to differentiate between local
variables and global variables having the same name. As always,
an expando with no modification will resolve to a local variable
if it can, and a global variable it cannot. However, if the
variable name is prefixed with a single colon (either as an lval
OR as an rval), then the variable will be expanded *only* as a
local variable, and if the local variable does not exist, it will
expand to the false value. If the variable name is prefixed with
two colons (again, either as an lval or an rval), the variable will
be expanded *only* as a global variable, even if a local variable
by that name exists. Here are some examples:
assign foo 1
local foo 2
@ ::foo = 4 # Sets the GLOBAL variable
@ :foo = 6 # Sets the LOCAL variable
@ foo = 8 # Sets the LOCAL variable
@ bar = 12 # Sets the GLOBAL variable
$::foo # is '4'
$:bar # is the false value
$bar # is 12
$foo # is 8
*** News 03/24/98 -- New /on, /ON UNLOAD
As a courtesy to script writers that use /package in order to keep
track of all of the aliases and so forth that they create in their
scripts, /ON UNLOAD will be hooked with the package name (as supplied
to /package) when the user does /unload <packagename>. Presumably,
you could use this to close open logfiles or $connect()s or what
ever garbage collection that is needed.
*** News 03/24/98 -- Built in function $tdiff() enhanced (as a demo)
To demonstrate the proof of concept, the $tdiff() function has been
expanded to support decimals. For example:
$tdiff(60.01) returns "1 minute 0.01 seconds"
If you like this support and want to see it applied to the other
$tdiff*() functions, let me know.
*** News 03/24/98 -- New /set, /SET MIRC_BROKEN_DCC_RESUME
Unfortunately, due to popular demand, i have broken my previous
promise to never #define MIRC_BROKEN_DCC_RESUME, a feature which
breaks both the spirit and the letter of RFC 1459. As a comprimise,
the ability to use this feature is controlled through a new set by
the same name, /SET MIRC_BROKEN_DCC_RESUME which will now and forever
default to OFF. (Since /set's can be changed by a script, there will
not ever be a need for me to change this default to ON.) I stand by
my previous statement that any script that uses this feature is
broken and you should pester the script author to take it out.
*** News 03/24/98 -- /ON DCC_OFFER extended
If you offer a dcc send to another user, then /on dcc_offer will
hook with additional arguments:
$3 - filename being offered
$4 - size of the file being offered
*** News 03/24/98 -- Built in function $isnumber() changed
You may now specify a base argument, prepended with a 'b'.
For example, to determine if '014' is a number in base 6,
$isnumber(014 b6) or $isnumber(b6 014)
It makes no difference whether the base is the first or the
second argument: but you must put a 'b' before it either way.
Bases 0 through 36 are supported. Base 0 (the default) is a
special base that attempts to auto-grok the argument for its
base (see the man page on strtol(3))
*** News 03/24/98 -- New built in function $rest(start text) (Matt)
This function works like $restw(), but it works on strings. It
returns 'text' beginning at the 'start'th character
*** News 03/24/98 -- /bind metaX now shows all of the meta-X bindings
If you do something, like say, /bind meta1, then the client will
show you all the bindings you have that start with meta1.
*** News 03/24/98 -- The slash (/) always recognized as a command char
As a consideration to scripters, the client will always accept
the slash as a command character, even if /set command_chars does
not include it. You may then safely and with a free conscience
do //built_in_command without having to lie awake at night worrying
that someone would take away the slash from you.
*** News 03/06/98 -- Add or delete specific levels from /window level
You may now add or delete levels from your existing /window level
by prepending the level(s) with a plus ('+') for addition and a
minus ('-') for subtraction. For example:
/window level all -- sets the window level
/window level -crap -- removes JUST crap level
/window level +crap -- adds crap level back.
*** News 03/04/98 -- You may now use "special chars" in your input prompt
Previously, you could use ansi sequences to turn on bold and so
forth in your input prompt. Now you may use ircII's "special chars"
to turn them on as well (like ^B, ^C, etc). The flipside of this is
that you may only use "safe" ansi codes, if you use them at all, since
unsafe ansi codes will be stripped out by the client. This is
intended to be a feature, not a bug.
*** News 03/04/98 -- New character for $info(o)
If the return value from $info(o) includes the character 'm', then
you know that you should /set color instead of /set control_color_c.
This can be used in conjunction with the next note...
*** News 03/04/98 -- IMPORTANT! /SET CONTROL_C_COLOR RENAMED TO /SET COLOR
It is important to note this change. If you have /set control_c_color
in your script, you should do one of two things to work around this:
1) Use a compatability /set for older epic4pre1.* clients:
/on ^set "COLOR *" set control_c_color $1
2) OR use a compatability /set for newer epic4pre1.* clients:
/on ^set "CONTROL_C_COLOR *" set color $1
*** News 03/03/98 -- Correct support for "nondestructive spaces".
You may now use the ^S special char as a "non destructive space".
This is emitted by the ansi parser when you do the ^[[<N>C code.
The general idea of a nd space is that any color/highlight/etc that
is active *will not* be output for the space (it is left totaly
blank of all attributes)
*** News 03/02/98 -- New flag to /input, /input -noecho
If you want to input a password, or some other sensitive information,
you may use the -noecho flag to /input to suppress the echoing of
the characters as they are typed.
*** News 03/02/98 -- Ten new /set status_user(10-19) supported.
You may now do /set status_user10 through /set status_user19.
They will show up on your status bar via the %{1}0 through %{1}9
expandoes. See below for explanation of how %{N}M works.
*** News 03/01/98 -- Uppercase user modes supported
Now all 26 of the uppercase user modes are supported, along with
the 26 lower case modes. Should cause the client not to crash
on DALNet and so forth.
*** News 02/27/98 -- Semantic changes for status line expandoes.
It is now possible (though there is no support for it yet), to
specify a "map" for your status line expandos. The general syntax
is: %{N}M where 'N' is some number, and 'M' is the expando
that you want. Note that for different values of 'N', you will get
different values for 'M'. The "default" map is 0. To give you an
idea how it works, try using %{0}S and see that it is the same as
%S. I have included (for testing purposes) a single expando %T on
map #1. Use %{1}T and see that it is *different* than %T is. It
is expected that this will allow an effectively unlimited number of
status line expandos in the future.
*** News 02/27/98 -- New built in function, $isnumber(text)
You pass it a number, it tells you if it is a number or not. It
correctly handles negative numbers, and hexadecimal/octal. More or
less all it does is call strtol(input, NULL, 0). See the man page
for strtol to see how that works.
*** News 02/27/98 -- Four new mask types for $mask().
There are now four new types of masks for $mask():
N Z is a hostname Z is an ip address
-------------------------------------------------------------------
10 *!*@h.d *!*@d.*
11 *!*u@h.d *!*u@d.*
12 n!*@h.d n!*@d.*
13 n!*u@h.d n!*u@d.*
With the following modifications: In the ``local'' portion of
the hostname, all sequence of numbers are substituted with a
single '*'. That is to say,
$mask(10 nick!user@ppp-147-0-52-129.frobitz.com)
returns
*!*@ppp-*-*-*-*.frobitz.com
*** News 02/22/98 -- New built in function, $stripansicodes(text)
This function will "normalize" the text, suitable for displaying.
Generally, "normalization" has two aspects. The first aspect is that
if DISPLAY_ANSI is ON, then all ansi codes are either converted into
logical codes (^C sequences, or ^B, or ^_, etc), or they are stripped
out entirely. If DISPLAY_ANSI is OFF, then just the escape is mangled,
and the rest is left intact. ^C codes are also converted to a form
that correctly manages bold and blink attributes. THIS IS THE SAME
CODE THAT PREPROCESSES YOUR OUTPUT FOR THE SCREEN. So you can be
assured that What You Get Is What Youre Going To See.
*** News 02/22/98 -- New built in function, $printlen(text)
This function returns the number of _printable characters_ in the
text _as it would appear on the screen_. The string you pass must
not contain any ansi sequences, as they are interpreted as printable
characters. Use $stripansicodes() to remove them.
*** News 02/22/98 -- New math operator, **
The ** operator now acts as an exponential operator. All it does is
call pow(), so you can specify whatever arguments you want with it.
Yes, it correctly handles negative exponants and fractional exponants,
as long as your math library does!
*** News 02/22/98 -- New built in function $remws(lhs / rhs)
This function returns all of the words on the rhs of the the /,
except that any words that appear on the lhs of the / have been
removed first.
*** News 02/22/98 -- New built in function, $pad(len char string)
This allows you to pad a string out to a certain length with
a specified character. If the string is too long, it is NOT
truncated (as opposed to $[x]y).
*** News 02/18/98 -- Twenty new meta maps
Yep. Now there are thirty nine of them. META1-META39.
META4 is still, as always, sticky.
*** News 02/18/98 -- New built in function, $channel()
This returns some information about who is on your channel. It
returns a sorted list of nicknames prepended by two characters.
The first character is a '@' if the person is a channel operator,
and '.' if they are not. The second character is '+' if the person
is a channel voice, and '.' if they are not, and '?' if we're not
sure either way.
*** News 02/16/98 -- New built in function, $iscurchan()
This takes a channel argument, and will return '1' if the specified
channel is the current channel for *any* window that is bound to the
current server. It returns 0 otherwise. This is intended to allow
for more flexibility for testing for current channels in /ON's. EG:
Rather than:
/on ^send_public * {if ([$0] == C) {...} {...}}
Try doing:
/on ^send_public * {if (iscurchan($0)) {....} {...}}
This will allow you to do the "right thing" even when $0 is not the
current channel for the current window.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New built in functions: $getuid(), $getgid(), $getpgrp()
As well as $getlogin(). These correspond to the system calls by the
same name. Do a lookup on the man page for information on what they
return.
*** News 02/14/98 -- Changes to how ansi codes are handled
IF YOU HAVE /SET DISPLAY_ANSI ON:
New code contributed by fireclown now eradicates all ansi codes
from the output before it is counted and displayed. Any codes that
are recongized and are "safe" (such as ^[[<X>m, where <X> is one of
the color codes, or bold/blink/reverse/underline), are converted to
the corresponding logical character. All other codes are blown away
entirely. Not just the escape, but the whole thing (at least as much
as we can recognize it.)
IF YOU HAVE /SET DISPLAY_ANSI OFF:
Just like before, the escape is mangled into reverse, and the rest
of the string is untouched.
Also, since all ansi color codes are converted to ^C codes, then
if you /set control_c_color OFF, all color will be inhibited.
Conversely, if you /set control_c_color ON, all color will be
honored. IT NO LONGER IS RELEVANT WHAT YOUR /SET DISPLAY_ANSI
VALUE IS TO DETERMINE HOW YOU SEE COLORS!
*** News 02/14/98 -- New ^C codes
The Control-C Color codes from 00 to 15 are now in "mirc" order
(which is also used by BitchX). This has been changed to make it
easier on scripts that want to be BitchX/EPIC compatable. The
ANSI order codes have been moved to:
30 - 37 Ansi Foreground colors
40 - 47 Ansi Background colors
50 - 57 Emphasized fg/bg colors
Note that 30-37,40-47 corresponds directly to the ^[[<X>m codes
and that 50-57 is either the BOLDED colors of 30-37, or the BLINKING
colors from 40-47, depending on whether or not it is on the lhs or
the rhs of the color code.
*** News 02/14/98 -- Two new debugging flags to /who
/WHO -d (diagnose) will show the contents of the who queue for the
server for your current window
/WHO -f (flush) will remove all the entries of the who queue for
the server for your current window. You must *NEVER* do this
while a WHO request is still pending, or the client will
fall over. If you report this as a bug, i will laugh at you.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New built in function, $rigtype()
You give it some number of ignore levels, it will give you all of the
patterns (exact patterns) that match *only* those levels (no more,
no less.) Dont ask, this is what was requested. ;-)
*** News 02/14/98 -- New built in function, $igtype()
You give it one of your ignore patterns (must be EXACTLY the same.
This is not for use as a matcher. Use $rigmask() for that) and it
will give you the IGNOREd levels on that pattern.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New built in function, $winlevel()
You give it a window description (name or refnum) and it gives
you the lastlog levels that are bound to that window. Simple,
aint it?
*** News 02/14/98 -- New /set, /SET HIGH_BIT_ESCAPE (0 | 1 | 2)
This controls the behavior of how the client handles 8 bit characters.
If this is set to 0, the eighth bit, if any, is always stripped to
yeild a 7-bit ascii value. If this is set to 1, then if the 'km'
termcap variable is set (hint: it almost always is), then the eight
bit character <meta>-X will be converted into a <ESC>-X sequence.
If this is set to 2, then the client will leave the character alone
and parse it as a normal 8 bit character.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New /on, /ON SERVER_LOST
This is (hopefully) hooked any time youre disconnected from any
server for any reason.
*** News 02/14/98 -- Variable modifier : (a colon) implicitly declares local
You may now *** as an lvalue *** prepend the variable name with
a colon to impliclity declare it as a local variable. You must not
use the colon in any rvalue context, or in the /fe or /foreach
commands, as the variable is already declared local there. You need
only use the colon once. Any future references will automatically
use the local variable because it will have been declared that way.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New flag to /xecho, /xecho -s
/xecho -s attempts to emulate the internal "say()" function, and
promises not to output anything if you have run the command with the
^ modifier to suppress any output. (Normally, all /xecho's always
are output, even if you did ^cmd to supress output)
*** News 02/14/98 -- New status line expando, %. (percent-dot)
This outputs the current contents of whatever was set with the
/window status_special command (see below)
*** News 02/14/98 -- New /window command, /WINDOW STATUS_SPEICAL
This /window command sets some window-specific information that
you would like to see displayed on your status bar. It will be
displayed in the status bar using the %. expando (thats a dot)
*** News 02/14/98 -- New built in function, $chop(num text)
This function returns "text" with the LAST "num" characters
removed. If "num" is negative, nothing happens.
*** News 02/14/98 -- /set status_user<3-9> changed
They now go to your current window rather than to a NON current
window. I did this because it seemed everyone wanted it that way.
*** News 02/14/98 -- New set, /set current_window_level <LEVELs>
This set will allow you to specify some number of levels as always
going to the current window *if and only if* the current window is
attached to the same server as the output to that level. Otherwise,
it would go to the "normal" window. This is useful for people who
want informational stuff to always go to a visible window, so they
may choose to do /set current_window_level CRAP
*** News 02/14/98 -- $mychannels() can take an argument
If the argument is a number, then it is taken as a server refnum
that youre interested in. If it is not a number, then it is taken
as a window name that youre interested in. But wait! There's more.
If you must have a need to specify a window refnum instead of a
name, you can prefix it with the '#' character and thatll work too.
*** News 02/14/98 -- Documentation updated
Youll notice this file is way behind the work ive done. So today
im gong to go through and update all the stuff ive done since the
last time i documented it (2 and a half months). They all have
todays date, but theyve been done at various times recently.
*** News 12/29/97 -- New built in function $ischanvoice(nick #channel)
This function returns one of three values depending on the current
+v status of the given nick on the given channel.
0 -- The person is not +v
1 -- The person is +v
-1 -- I dont know
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in function $mask(type address)
Returns a pattern suitable for /ignore'ing or banning. If 'type'
is N, and the address is Z (either n!u@h.d, or n!u@d.h, where the
former is a host.domain and the latter is an ip address), then the
return value is:
N Z is a hostname Z is an ip address
-------------------------------------------------------------------
0 *!u@h.d *!u@d.h
1 *!*u@h.d *!*u@d.h
2 *!*@h.d *!*@d.h
3 *!*u@*.d *!*u@d.*
4 *!*@*.d *!*@d.*
5 n!u@h.d n!u@d.h
6 n!*u@h.d n!*u@d.h
7 n!*@h.d n!*@d.h
8 n!*u@*.d n!*u@d.*
9 n!*@*.d n!*@d.*
*** News 12/19/97 -- Changes to $winchan() and $chanwin(), now synonyms
Since there is no compelling reason to make a distinction between
$winchan() and $chanwin(), and since the specific distinction that
was made caused no end of problems for both me and scripters, the
two troubled functions are now synonyms of each other. If you pass
it a channel, it will return a window refnum. If you pass in anything
that isnt a channel, it will be considered a window refnum or name,
and the current channel of that window will be returned.
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in function $winrefs()
This returns the refnums of every currently open window, both hidden
and invisible. While the order of the refnums is *EXPLICITLY*
undefined, it follows in traverse_all_windows() order, which usually
returns windows in physical order on their screens, and the invisibile
windows are last. You may NOT assume this, though. ;-)
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in function $querywin(target)
Given a query target, this returns a window that has that target
as its current query. If more than one window has the specified
target as its query, which window is returned is indeterminite.
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in function $uname(description string)
This returns the entire argument string as-is except with the
following modifications, as retreived from the uname(2) system call.
Any instance of will be replaced with
---------------------------------------------------------------------
%m The "machine" (architecture)
%n The "Node" (hostname)
%r The "Release" of the operating system
%s The "Name" of the operating system
%v The "Version" of the operating system
%a The logical value of "%s %n %r %v %m"
%% A single %
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in pattern matcher
A new pattern matcher has been written. It is expected to be
bug-for-bug compatable with the old pattern matcher. If you see
any discrepencies, no matter how obscure, please let me know.
The reason for the new matcher is that it uses an iterative algorithm
rather than a recursive algorithm, and so is expected to be faster.
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in commands, /PACKAGE and /UNLOAD
The /PACKAGE command allows you to "group" all of the assigns,
aliases, and ons (and stubs) in a script under a common package
name. When you use the /package command, any alias/assigns/on that
are registered until the end of the file are given the current
package name. You can change the package name anywhere in a script,
even if you have previously used /package. However, packages only
last until the end of the file -- they never propogate upwards.
Scripts that are loaded by other scripts may put themselves under
a different package name than the one being used by the loading
script. By default, a script is put into the package that is
currently active in the script that loaded it (or * if no package
is active)
The idea of a logical grouping is useful for the purposes of
removing the entire package later. So the /unload command allows
you to remove a package that was constructed as above.
The idea behind all this is to allow a script, and anything that
it loads, to be easily removed whenever you want. By simply putting
a /package <something> command at the top of a script, then you can
later do /unload <something> and everything that was loaded in that
original script will be removed.
As these commands will surely be used in the future in ways that
are not really easy to describe now, you should be careful to not
pass more than one argument to /package or /unload. Even though
multiple arguments may be recognized now, for forwards compatability,
you should not get in the habit of doing that.
*** News 12/19/97 -- New built in function $cparse(text)
The $cparse() function returns the given text without modifications
except for the following exceptions:
Any instance of will be replaced with ^C codes to change the
text to text to background to
---------------------------------------------------------------------
%k %K %0 black bold black black
%r %R %1 red bold red red
%g %G %2 green bold green green
%y %Y %3 yellow bold yellow yellow
%b %B %4 blue bold blue blue
%m %M %5 magenta bold magenta magenta
%p %P magenta (think: purple)
%c %C %6 cyan bold cyan cyan
%w %W %7 white bold white white
%F Flashing attribute turned on
%n All colors turned off
%N Don't put a clear-color tag at the of output
%% A single %
Of course, you need to have /set control_c_color on to see the
colors, so this is an easy way for a script to be color-aware
while not forcibly imposing colors on an unwilling user. ;-)
*** News 12/19/97 -- Built in functios $winnum() and $winnam() extended
They can now take a window description (eg, a window name or a
window refnum) as an optional argument, and will return the info
for that window, if it exists. As always, with no arguments it
still defaults to the current window.
*** News 12/18/97 -- New /window command, /WINDOW QUERY
This allows you to set the query nicknames for any window that
you can specify. The /query command now uses it.
*** News 12/18/97 -- New attribute, Blinking
This is a new character attribute, just like underline and bold
and reverse. Not all terminal emulations will support it, but
the linux and freebsd consoles do. By default, the blink key
is ^F (think of flashing), and you can input that by /bind'ing
something to BLINK. You can turn it off with /set blink_video off
*** News 12/16/97 -- New script: "man"
After you do /load man, you will have available a "man" alias
that will search all of the subdirectores if the man-style help
pages for the topic youre looking for. It handles multiple
sections ok. Try /man away to get an idea.
*** News 12/16/97 -- New argument passed to /on join.
A fourth argument is now passed to /on join. Here is a summary of
the the arguments to /on join.
$0 Nickname of who joined
$1 Channel that was joined
$2 Userhost of who joined
$3 Zero more of the strings (+o) or (+v)
(only on avalon 2.9 servers)
-- (+o), if present, is always $3.
-- (+v) can be either $3 or $4.
*** News 12/16/97 -- New argument to /help, -WAIT
If you do /help -wait, then it will not return until the help system
has finished whatever its doing. If the user is not currently doing
/help, it will return immediately.
*** News 12/16/97 -- New argument to /xecho, -NOLOG
The -NOLOG argument to /xecho inhibits the current output line from
being logged, either at the /set log level or the /window log level.
Im not sure why you would want to do this, but Kasi asked for it.
*** News 12/15/97 -- New built in function, $leftpc()
This function returns the LONGEST string of "text" that contains
"N" printable characters, where "N" is the first argument to the
function and everything else is text. For example:
$leftpc(10 onetwothre$chr(27)[34mefour)
return
onetwothree<blue attribute>
Note that any non-printable characters that appear after the N'th
character *will* be included in the output. This is intentional.
*** News 12/11/97 -- New built in function, $rigmask()
This works just like $igmask, but in reverse. You provide it
a nick!user@host pattern, and it returns to you all the ignores
that would be triggered by that pattern.
*** News 12/05/97 -- Ten new meta keybindings, META10 through META19
You now have 19 meta keys to work with. The client attempts as
much as possible to conserve space, so this isnt a RAM buster.
If you dont use the new meta maps, the only space reserved for them
will be a NULL pointer. ;-) Meta4 is still sticky.
*** News 12/03/97 -- New flood protection, change to /ON FLOOD
On flood now takes one more argument:
$0 The person doing the flood
$1 The type of flood theyre doing
$2 The channel (if any) theyre flooding on (NEW!)
$3- The text of the flood.
*** News 12/02/97 -- New flags to /CLEAR and /UNCLEAR
They are -HIDDEN which clears or unclears all the hidden windows,
and -VISIBLE for all of the visible windows. Theyre mutually
exclusive. The last one used prevails. Use -ALL if you want all
windows to be adjusted.
*** News 12/01/97 -- New built in command, /UNCLEAR
This command works just like /CLEAR, except it nails the bottom of
your scrollback display onto the bottom of the screen (or as low as
possible if you dont have a full screen of display yet)
*** News 12/01/97 -- New built in function, $msar()
This is a "multiply substituting" $sar(). You give it any number
of delimited patterns, and it will substitute all of the patterns
on the text. Of course, the obvious limitation is that the text
may not contain the delimiter character.
*** News 11/27/97 -- New built in function, $randread() (srfrog)
Given a filename, this returns a random line from that file.
Yes, it does ~ completion...
*** News 11/25/97 -- New built in function, $igmask()
You give it a pattern, it returns all of the ignore patterns that
are matched by the pattern.
*** News 11/20/97 -- New flag to /timer, -WINDOW <windesc>
This flag will allow you to specify that the timer should go off
in the specified window. Please note that the limiations about
timers that go off in hidden windows still applies. Use this flag
with caution until the problem with timers in hidden windows is
addressed.
*** News 11/20/97 -- Changes to /dcc close
You may now use the words "-all" or "*" to indicate that all of the
dcc's of a given type or dcc's to a given nick should be closed.
For example:
To close all of the dcc's you have open to "foobar",
/dcc close * foobar
To close all of the dcc chat's you have open to anyone,
/dcc close chat *
*** News 11/19/97 -- New built in function, $count()
This function returns the number of times (possibly overlapping)
that a given string appears in some text. For example:
$count(. one.two.three) returns 2.
$count(ll llll) returns 3 (think about it).
*** News 11/12/97 -- New /ON, /ON DCC_OFFER
This hook is activated whenever you make an OUTBOUND DCC OFFER.
(Kind of the complement to /on dcc_request).
Presently, it has exactly two arguments:
$0 is the person to whom you are offering the dcc,
$1 is the type of dcc you are offering.
It is possible that more args could be added in the future on request.
*** News 11/11/97 -- New /SET, /SET STATUS_TRUNCATE_RHS **** RECALLED *****
This set determines which side of the %> in your status bar should be
truncated if the status bar is wider than the screen. If this is set
to ON, then the right hand side of the %> will be truncated back to
80 characters. If this is set to OFF, then the left hand side of the
%> will be truncated so as to allow everything to the right of %> to
be kept.
***** This feature is non-operative due to some *****
***** serious problems. It will remain *****
***** non-operative until such time it is fixed *****
*** News 11/10/97 -- New script, "pipe"
This script implements the $pipe() function, which demonstrates how
you can use /on exec to capture the stdout of an exec'd command and
return it from a function (essentially acting as a pipe or a backtick
type operation). It may not be universally useful as-is. Feel free
to tweak it to your taste.
*** News 11/07/97 -- Improvements to /ON
As part of a larger re-organization of the /on command, three noticible
changes to the semantics of /ON have been made:
1) The @ and # "server-specific" qualifiers have been withdrawn.
If you used this feature, and desperately need to retain it, let
me know and ill work something out with you. I did not reimplement
them on the understanding that nobody would miss them.
2) Doing /on ^type ^"nick" now works as you would expect, that is to
say, it really does nothing, and it would suppress the default
behavior. This is a lower-cost way to do /on ^type "nick" #.
3) You may now do /ON SEND ("send" is just an exmaple, this works for
any hook) to see all of the hooks for types that begin with "send".
Previously, it was impossible to get a listing of more than one
hook type at a time.
*** News 11/05/97 -- Improvements to /TIMER
/TIMER now attempts to keep track of what the current server and
current window were when the timer was registered, and will revert
back to that window/server when the timer expires. This should prove
to be much more intuitive.
*** News 10/28/97 -- New flag to /xecho, /XECHO -R
This flag dumps a raw string to your terminal emulator. It is
imperative to notice that the client does *no interpretation* of the
string. It is dumped right to your terminal by the /xecho command,
so it never gets backed by your window/screen. That means you should
really only use this to output strings that act as a state-change
command to your terminal (eg, setting the xterm title bar, or doing
an unflash.) If you output "modifying" codes (like setting colors or
attributes), it wont get to your window display and will be lost on
the next window redraw.
*** News 10/27/97 -- New /set, /SET NO_FAIL_DISCONNECT (ON|OFF) (nuke)
When this is set to ON, the client will NOT automatically terminate
your connection to the server if a write() fails. This is most useful
for nuke and other people who have static ip's connected to routers
that retain packets while you are disconnected. The default is OFF,
since for most people, a write() failure is a fatal condition.
*** News 10/26/97 -- New built in commands, "break", "continue", "return"
These built in commands are used for controlling the flow of code
execution. They work 99% like they would in C. When youre in a
"while" or "for" loop, the "continue" command will immediately
terminate the current loop and go back to the top (the 'for' command
will run the 'iteration' part as it does in C). When you do a
"break" command in "while" or "for", it immediately terminates the
loop entirely and moves to the next command after the "while" or "for".
The "return" command is used to immediately terminate execution of
an alias or on-event. If an argument is specified, it is assigned to
the local variable FUNCTION_RETURN. Those of you who use the old
"return" alias that just assigns to function_return will find that it
still works, but it wont terminate the execution of the current alias
or on (eg, you wont notice any changes.) Youre encouraged to take
advantage of the new functionality. =)
*** News 10/26/97 -- "FUNCTION_RETURN" now a normal local variable.
When you make a function call, the "function_return" variable is now
instantiated as a regular local variable. Previously, the
function_return variable was trapped for special treatment and was
a write-only value. Now it is a read/write variable, so you can use
it just like any other variable. The one exception to this is that
you may assign to FUNCTION_RETURN in aliases that are called from the
function that instantiated them (as opposed to other local variables
which are not honored in called aliases.) This was done out of
neccesity to be compatable with scripts that presume that you may
assign to FUNCTION_RETURN and it will carry to the closest enclosing
function call. Since FUNCTION_RETURN is stored on the calling stack,
the arbitrary limit of 128 nested function calls no longer exists.
*** News 10/25/97 -- New Status bar expando -- %K
This expando will be displayed on the status bar if you are currently
in scrollback mode in that window. Should be good for people who
forget. ;-) What it actually displays is controlled by a set,
/set status_scrollback. The default is "(Scroll)"
*** News 10/20/97 -- Greatly reduced CPU usage in pre0.30
Some profiling work showed some really monsterous CPU hogs. With
a few minor, yet strategic changes, CPU usage for the testers has
been reduced from 60% to 90% compared to pre0.28. (ive seen cpu usage
under 2:00 a day for someone on 10 channels running with all usermodes
active running clonebot-detection scripts.)
*** News 10/20/97 -- New built in functions, $regcomp(), $regmatch(), etc.
There are four new built in functions that give you an interface
to the posix.2 "regex" pattern matching functionality:
$regcomp(<pattern>)
given a regex pattern, it will return a printable string
representation of the compiled pattern. You must later pass
the return value of this function to $regfree() to avoid
memory leaks. The pattern is assumed to be case insensitive,
and cannot make use of any \(...\) subexpressions.
$regexec(<compiled> <string>)
given a compiled regular expression and some text, it will
return 0 if the string is matched by the compiled pattern,
or will return nonzero on error. The return code can be
passed to $regerror() for specific information. Of note,
the return value '1' means the pattern didnt match.
$regerror(<error code> <compiled>)
given an error code and the compiled regular expression from
which it was generated, this gives you a human readable error
message. If the error was from $regcomp(), then you can pass
the error code "-1", which will then be subtituted with the
last $regcomp() error code. Otherwise, error code should be
the return value from $regexec().
$regfree(<compiled>)
given a compiled regular expression, this returns any resources
that were used by the regular expression. If you fail to
$regfree() everything you $regcomp(), then you will expose a
memory leak, and that wont be my fault. ;-) You must not use
a compiled regular expression after you have called $regfree()
on it. To do so will result in chaos.
*** News 10/20/97 -- New command line flag, -B
This does what the stock client's -b flag does. It loads your .ircrc
file right at client startup time rather than waiting for the client
to connect to a server.
*** News 10/20/97 -- New math operators << and >>.
These are the left-bitshift and right-bitshift operators. Currently
they are only available in their binary forms. There is no support
for <<= and >>=, as support for that would be problematic. Since you
can just do the longhand assignment, their ommision is not a big deal.
*** News 10/16/97 -- New built in functions, $fnexist(), $cexist()
These two functions return 1 if the given built in function, or
the given built in command, exist. It returns 0 if they do not
exist. The idea use for these is to provide an alias or function
that emulates the built in function/command youre looking for, if
theyre absent (as in older versions). Of course, this is more of
a forward looking feature, as it wont help you on older releases. =)
*** News 10/15/97 -- New /set, /SET STATUS_DOES_EXPANDOS (ON|OFF)
This /set controls whether or not any expandos (eg, $vars or $func()s)
in the status line should be expanded or left alone. Please note that
this option is *very expensive*, and so you should not turn it on
unless you really do have expandoes in the status_format, and you
really shouldnt put expandoes in the status_format if you can possibly
get away with it. ;-)
*** News 10/15/97 -- New built in function, $currchans(server)
If you specify an argument, this function will return quoted words
containing a server refnum and a channel name. The channels to be
returned are channels that are currently considered to be "current
channels" for some window that is connected to the specified server.
If you specify a server of -1, then $lastserver() is assumed. If you
specify no arguments, then all current channels will be returned.
It is expected that this will be useful to determine if a given
channel on a given server is a current channel on *any* window.
The return value of this function uses double quotes, so it is
suitable for use in /fe, or to pass to $rmatch(). Just remember to
glob against "* #chan" (with the quotes!) for any server.
*** News 10/15/97 -- Change to /window (Colten)
If you specify a window refnum where /WINDOW excepts to find a command,
then that window will be used as the target window for any further
commands, *but*, that window will not be made the current window (as
it would if you had used REFNUM <refnum>). This is useful for
changing an attribute for a specific window but you dont want the
current window to change. eg:
/window 2 double on
*** News 10/15/97 -- Change to $myservers() (Colten)
If you pass any argument to $myservers(), then a list of refnums to
open servers will be returned. The existing behavior of returning a
list of NAMES to open servers is retained if you pass no arguments.
*** News 10/15/97 -- New built in function, $isconnected(refnum) (Colten)
This function returns 1 if the specified server is currently connected
(eg, you have been successfully registered). If refnum is -1, then
from_server is assumed.
*** News 10/08/97 -- New /window command, /WINDOW SCRATCH (ON|OFF)
This allows you to designate a window as being a "scratch" window.
A 'scratch' window is one that allows direct addressing, and it does
not scroll. The support *just barely works*. That means if you
do anything i didnt expect, you probably will crash the client.
Let me know if you find any ways to confuse this so i can fix them.
To send text to a given line on a scratch window, use /xecho with
the -line flag:
/xecho -window <scratch refnum> -line <line number> text
/XECHO -LINE will whine at you if:
* If the window you specify is not a scratch window.
* You dont specify -window before you specify -line.
* If the line number you specify is out of range for the window.
Suggestions/observations:
* Scratch windows dont deal with being resized very gracefully.
I suggest you do /WINDOW NEW SCRATCH ON FIXED ON so that it cant be
resized on you. You should assume (at this time) that if the window
gets resized, the contents are *undefined*. That will probably be
improved in the future.
* Scratch windows probably should not be attached to servers. Use
/WINDOW DISCON to make sure they are unbound.
* There is NO SCROLLBACK on scratch windows. When you overwrite a
line, it is gone forever.
* If you "unscratch" a window, then it is implicitly /CLEARed.
This to ensure that the status of the window after being returned
to normal will be coherent. The previous contents of the window
will be retained in the scrollback buffer.
* If you do a normal /echo to a scratch window, it will use the line
below the most previously output line. When you reach the bottom
of the window, it will go back to the top.
*** News 10/08/97 -- New /window command, /WINDOW DISCON
This allows you to specify that a window is not to be bound to any
specified server. That means the window will NEVER recieve output
from any qualified server event, unless you specifically use /xecho
to redirect output to that window.
*** News 10/01/97 -- IMPORTANT! SEMANTIC CHANGES! IMPORTANT!
The $winchan() functions and $chanwin() functions have been reversed.
That is to say, $winchan() now takes a WINDOW REFNUM argument, and
$chanwin() takes a CHANNEL NAME argument. This is the reverse of
what it has been before, and the change was done in order to keep the
semantics of built in functions coherent (eg, $chan*() functions
always take a channel name, and $win*() functions always take a window
refnum. A /set has been provided to let you have the old semantics.
*** BUT PLEASE MAKE A PLAN TO CONVERT YOUR CODE TO THE ***
*** NEW SEMANTICS. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. ***
To let you know if the new semantics or old semantics are in effect,
the new $info command, ``$info(w)'' command will return 1. So add
something like this in your script to get compatability:
if (info(w) == 1) { set winchan_hack ON }
IMPORTANT!!!
The value of $info(w) will change to 2 (two) when this hack has been
phased out in some future version. *** PROGRAM DEFENSIVELY. *** Plan
to do something reasonable if $info(w) returns a value of 2. (This
means that the above /set is not available, and the new semantics are
irrevokably in place.) I promise that the old semantics will not be
irrevokably phased out before EPIC4pre5, and that the old semantics
will most likely be phased out at the time of the production release
(EPIC4.000) Please plan ahead for this.
If all of this ends up being unreasonably complicated or a burden,
then let me know, and i'll work something out with you.
*** News 10/01/97 -- New /set, /SET WINCHAN_HACK
This is a *temporary* feature to help ease the transition for those
who have a substantial amount of code that depends on the semantics
of $winchan() being "backwards" (eg, that it takes a channel argument
rather than a window argument). When this is turned on, $winchan()
and $chanwin() will have their "traditional", or "reverse" semantics.
When this is turned off, they will have their "modern", or "correct"
semantics. THIS SHOULD NEVER BE TURNED ON UNLESS YOU REALLY NEED IT.
Please do NOT write new code with the old semantics, it will only
encourage the broken semantics.
*** News 09/26/97 -- New /on, /ON REDIRECT
This hooks any time something is about to be redirected to someone.
If you hook this silently, the redirect will be suppressed. This
would then be useful to filter out stuff that you might not want
to have redirected.
$0 - the target to whom the text is about to be sent
$1- - the text itself.
*** News 09/20/97 -- New function $servernick()
You give it a server refnum, it gives you your current nickname
on that server. This function has been around a while, it just
never got documented.
*** News 09/20/97 -- #define CONTROL_C_COLOR now in $info(o)
It is represented by the letter 'c'.
*** News 09/20/97 -- New built in function $chanwin() <THIS HAS BEEN CHANGED>
This is the reverse of $winchan(). You give it a window refnum or
name, and it gives you the current channel (if any) for that window.
*** News 09/20/97 -- New built in function, $winnicklist() (Colten)
You pass it either a window refnum or a window name, and it returns
the nicks that are currently on the "nick list" for that window.
(See the help for /window add for info about the nick list). If
you dont specify any arguments, the current window is presumed.
*** News 09/20/97 -- New /set, /SET NO_CONTROL_LOG (Peter Evans)
When this is /set to on, the client will not output any nonprintable,
nonspace characters to the log file. When off, it will have the old
behavior (dumping everything right to the log as it appears on the
screen.)
*** News 09/20/97 -- New /on, /ON WINDOW_CREATE
When a window is created with /on window, then this new hook will
be activated. You may assume that any "window" commands that you
specify in the body will work for the window being created. This
is intended for setting "defaults" for windows, like so:
/on window_create * window double on
*** News 09/18/97 -- Comprimise for /SET STATUS_MAIL
Because there has been some controversy over the inability to "get
rid of that damned colon" for %M in /set status_mail, i have agreed
to take it out. However, for those of us who like to have
/set mail 1, we wont be left with a "(Mail: )". There is a new
script called 'setmail", that traps /set mail, and offers two new
/set's, /set mail_format1, and /set mail_format2, for controlling
how the mail should look like when /set mail 1 and /set mail 2
is engaged (respectively.) I would just suggest that you load it
in your .ircrc (before you /set mail) and see what i mean.
*** News 09/18/97 -- New error tracking feature
If an error occurs while you are loading a script, then the client
will tell you about where the error occured. I say "about", because
the client doesnt actually try to run /load'ed commands until it
reaches the next valid command, so the command that is in error is
always the first one BEFORE the line stated. As well, when you
attempt to /assign to an invalid variable, it will tell you what the
invalid variable name was, so you can hunt it down.
*** News 09/16/97 -- New /set, /SET STATUS_NICK (|Rain|)
This is a control for how your nickname will appear in the status
bar. Following convention, you may use %N in the /set to determine
where the nick should be placed. The default is just %N by itself,
which yeilds the traditional behavior.
*** News 09/11/97 -- New function $nohighlight()
This function will take any arbitrary input and will convert all of
the highlight characters (^B, ^V, ^_, ^O, ^C, and ^[) to a "printable"
format (in reverse). This allows operators to find hidden attributes
in channel names that would otherwise be invisibly stripped.
*** News 09/10/97 -- New function, $deuhc() (Peter Evans)
This function will remove "*!" or "*!*@" from the front of the
specified pattern, if it is present.
*** News 09/09/97 -- New /window argument, /WINDOW SKIP (ON|OFF)
You may now mark that a window should be 'skipped' when you are
moving to the NEXT_WINDOW or PREVIOUS_WINDOW. The only way to
"land" on that window then is to use /WINDOW GOTO or such. This
was intended to be used for windows that are not to recieve input,
such as your OpView window.
*** News 09/09/97 -- New command, /SHOOK <type> <args>
This is a hokey name, i admit. Anyone got a better name for it?
This function allows you to arbitrarily synthesize /on events with
your own arguments. This is intended to retro-fit new problems onto
old solutions. For example, you could do:
/on ^public "% &KILLS Received kill message *" {
shook KILL $2-
}
or something like that, to make your normal /on kill handlers to be
executed while youre on an ef2.9 server. Or so is the idea. Let
me know what you think of this, and if its broken, say so.
**** BE WARNED ****
Code in on hooks that depend on side effects (like $userhost()
being set) will be *utterly confused* by these synthetic events, and
will probably get wildly incorrect results. You yourself are
responsible for making sure that this doesnt happen to you!
*** News 09/09/97 -- New /window argument, /WINDOW FIXED (ON|OFF)
You may now "fix" a window as being a given size. When a window is
"fixed", it will never be shrunk or grown when you shrink or grow
another window, and it is immune to /window balance. You can still
directly shrink or grow a fixed window. The only exception to this
is if all windows on a screen are fixed, and the screen is resized,
the bottom window of the screen will be forcibly resized, although it
would still be "fixed". This was all done so that the OpView window
can be set to 4 lines and it will stay that way unless you explicitly
change it.
*** News 09/09/97 -- New /set, /SET BANNER_EXPAND
If this is set to ON, then the contents of /SET BANNER will be
expanded ($-substitution will occur) before it is used. If it is
OFF, then the value of /SET BANNER is used literally.
*** News 09/05/97 -- Changes to how windows are resized
When you resize your display, then the proportion of window sizes
between the non-fixed windows will be retained. That is to say,
if you had two windows, sizes X and 2X, and you change the screen
so that the first window has size Y, then the second window will have
about size 2Y. When you rebalance your windows (with /window balance),
all the nonfixed windows will be set to approx. the same size.
Fixed windows will not be touched.
*** News 09/05/97 -- Now friendlier with job control
If you want to suspend the client but are worried about it pinging
out, you should be able 'bg' the client now, and it wont stop due
to (tty output) or mangle your screen. You will need to stop the
client (with 'kill -STOP %1') before you 'fg' it again, or the client
wont accept input. This is not a bug, this is a job control problem.
This should satisfy anyone who still pines for 'ircserv' ;-)
*** News 09/04/97 -- New /on, /ON DCC_LIST
Many people have asked for an easy way to reformat the DCC output.
So this new on will output the 8 most interesting capabilities.
Im open to adding new ones, just let me know. The 'banner' of the
list is output with $0 being "Start" and the rest of the fields being
filler.
$0 - The type of DCC connection
$1 - "1" if encryption is on, "0" if its not (future exp)
$2 - Nickname of the peer
$3 - Status of connection
$4 - $time() when connection established, 0 if not connected.
$5 - Size of the file transfer, 0 if not applicable
$6 - Number of bytes transfered, 0 if not connected
$7 - Description field (usually the full filename)
*** News 09/04/97 -- Some new behavior for your display
A lot of the code that handles your display has been rewritten.
The most important changes are: When you scroll backwards, you will
get the lines that actually appeared on your screen, not the lines in
your lastlog. Those lines are output at the width they were split
for, and if your screen is a different size, they wont be re-split.
This is not a bug. Do not report it as a bug. When you are in
scroll mode, the screen will not automatically scroll for you if
the display reaches the end of the screen. Instead, that stuff is
put into the hold buffer. You can use the SCROLL_FORWARD key to go
forward a page *even into the hold buffer*, and all new output will
appear as long as that output doesnt make the screen scroll. Use the
SCROLL_END key to go back to the "normal" scrolling behavior.
You cannot turn HOLD_MODE off if youre in scrollback mode.
*** News 08/27/97 -- New /set, /SET CLOCK_FORMAT
This /set, if set, controls how the client should represent the
current time on your status bar, among other things. Rather than
have the representation be hardcoded in the client, this will give
you the flexiblity to have the time displayed just however you want.
By default, this /set comes UNSET. When this is unset, the more
traditional behavior of /set clock_24hour determines how the time
should appear. If you /set clock_format, it *overrides* the setting
of /set clock_24hour.
*** News 08/25/97 -- New built in functions, $substr() and $rsubstr()
These functions allow you to look for a string inside of another
string. It takes two or more arguments, with the first argument
being the string to look for (use double quotes if it has spaces
in it) and the rest of the arguments being the words to look in.
(You dont need quotes for this arg.) It returns -1 if the string
could not be found, or returns the offset (counting by zero) where
the string may be found in the source. $rsubstr() looks backwards
from the end of the string rather than from the front.
*** News 08/22/97 -- New flag to /XECHO, -B
The /XECHO -B flag instructs the client to prepend the current value
of BANNER_VAR before the line to be output. This allows you to output
something with a banner without having to worry about BANNER_VAR. If
you have have /set show_numerics ON and the hook happens to be a
numeric hook, then the numeric will be output.
*** News 08/20/97 -- Limits on /echo now removed
There have always been limitations to the size of lines being handled
for display. Recent limits have been 2048 characters or 40 lines to
the screen, and 20480 characters to the lastlog or to a log file.
All of these limitations have now been eliminated, and any size line
(within the confines of available memory) can be handled without
excuses.
*** News 08/19/97 -- Handling of ^C colors, new set, /SET CONTROL_C_COLORS
^C colors (eg, ``mIRC colors'') are now handled in the output stream.
Whether or not anything is done with them is controlled by a compile
time option (which is further controlled by a /set). If you #define
CONTROL_C_COLORS, in config.h and you /set CONTROL_C_COLORS ON, then
they will be parsed and converted into colors. If you #undef it,
then the value of the /set will not matter, colors will never be
honored. Sorry, but the "old" behavior of leaving them unchanged in
the output stream is no longer available. You either must honor them
or you must have them filtered out. (I doubt anyone will have a
problem with this.)
By default, the #define is #undef'd, and the /set is turned off.
The defaults will never change in future releases unless there
is overwhelming public pressure to change them.
*** News 08/17/97 -- New operator, #~ (prepend operator)
This is similar to the #= operator, which appends text to a variable.
This operator PREPENDS text to a given variable.
*** News 08/17/97 -- New flag for /timer, -REPEAT
The /timer -REPEAT flag takes one argument, which is given to be
the number of times that the specified action should be repeated
(every specified interval). The /timer -LIST flag reflects the
number of events left to be scheduled.
*** News 08/17/97 -- New script, "MOTD"
This script re-implements client-side MOTD files. It uses the two
below functions. Its only provided for those of you who miss this
feature.
*** News 08/15/97 -- New function $ftime()
This function returns to you the "mtime" of a given file (see stat(2))
In ordinary words, this was the last time that the file was modified.
It is the time that you see for an ordinary "ls -l" listing. It is
returned in seconds since the epoch, so youll need to $strftime() or
$ctime() to convert it to human format.
*** News 08/15/97 -- New function $irclib()
This function is only useful if you need to know where the IRCLIB
is. An example of its use is the "motd" script.
*** News 08/15/97 -- New function, $winbound()
This function takes one argument. If the argument specified is the
name or refnum of a window, then the name of the channel bound to that
window (if any) is the return value. If the argument specified is
the name of a channel, then the window refnum to which it is bound
(if any) is the return value. In case of ambiguity (if you have a
window name that looks like a channel name), the window takes
precedence over the channel.
*** News 08/08/97 -- Notify can now do userhost lookups automatically
Most people (everybody?) do a /userhost request in their
/on notify_signons, and that has been distressing to many servers,
because when you connect there is a flurry of ISON and USERHOST traffic
and many people have gotten trapped in "flooder mode". Some have
tried, with limited success and much agony, to batch up userhost
requests to help. In the interests of cutting down on client->server
traffic needed for NOTIFY events, the client can now automatically
fetch userhosts on your behalf.
To turn on this feature, /set NOTIFY_USERHOST_AUTOMATIC on. When
this is ON, the client will dispatch userhost queries for everybody
who is 'triggered' for that minute. It does intelligent batching,
so you wont be flooding the server as much. This is ideal for when
you initially connect and your flurry of ISONs and USERHOSTs can
sometimes make the server hate you. If this is OFF, then the
traditional behavior applies as normal.
To accomidate this new feature, /on NOTIFY_SIGNON now takes two
arguments: The new second argument is the userhost of the person
signing on. If you have the automatic userhost feature turned off,
the second argument will be empty.
*** News 08/08/97 -- New /set, /SET XTERM
You may now use this set to specify what "xterm" program you want
to use for /window create. Note that this can be overriden by the
XTERM environment variable. This was done on purpose, so that those
who have been setting the XTERM environment variable wont be suprised
by the /set's "default".
*** News 08/08/97 -- New servcmd support (SQUERY, SERVLIST, WALLCHOP)
The client now natively recognizes the SQUERY, SERVLIST commands
from av2.9 servers, and the WALLCHOP command from u2.10 servers.
I didnt implement WALLCHOP in the same way as contributed, so I
might get yelled at and change the implementation soon. ;-)
*** News 08/08/97 -- Can send multiple files with /dcc send
You may now specify more than one file with /dcc send nick <file>.
I guess thats useful in conjunction with $glob(*) or something.
Each request is sent out in a seperate PRIVMSG (obviously), so
you should be careful not to send out TOO many files at a time...
*** News 08/08/97 -- New /on, /ON KILL
This should simplify a lot of people's lives. When you recieve
one of those messages "*** Notice -- Recieved KILL message for ...",
/ON KILL will be hooked with the following arguments:
$0 - The server who sent the message (your server)
$1 - The hapless victim
$2 - The bastard who did the kill
$3 - The server path to the bastard
$4- - The reason for the kill
*** News 08/04/97 -- New /on, /ON OPER_NOTICE
The server uses "sendto_ops" to send an notice to all operators.
The client now automatically deals with this.
$0 - the server that sent you the notice
$1- - the text of the message AFTER the *** Notice --- part.
*** News 07/28/97 -- New built in function, $uhc()
$uhc() takes a single argument, which is a partially constructed
nick!user@host pattern, and returns a fully qualified nick!user@host
pattern. That is to say, any parts that are missing are filled in.
This is a front end to cut_n_fix_glob(), which is the function that
"fills in" your arguments to /ignore, so this works identically as
the nick!user@host argument to /ignore.
$uhc(nick) returns nick!*@*
$uhc(user@host.com) returns *!user@host
$uhc(*.host.com) returns *!*@*.host.com
*** News 07/28/97 -- New /SET, DO_NOTIFY_IMMEDIATELY
If this is set to ON, then when you do the /notify command, an
ISON will be immediately dispatched (the usual behavior.) But if
this is set to OFF, then the ISON is not immediately performed, and
you will have to wait until the top of the next minute to see if
the person is on. This is intended to be used in your .ircrc,
because some users have a zillion people on notify, and they end up
sending enough lines to the server when they connect that they activate
the server's flood control mechanism, then the server starts slowing
you down, and thats just a big hassle.
*** News 07/28/97 -- New /SET, NOTIFY_INTERVAL
This one is a bit tricky. The value of this set is taken to be
a suggestion about how frequently NOTIFY checks should be performed.
This does not ever make the client check at any time other than the
top of every minute, but it is possible to tweak this variable so
that some minutes will be skipped. For most sane people, setting
this to be a multiple of 60 is advised. Setting this to less than
60 does not make it check more frequently than once a minute.
/set notify_interval 60 yeilds the "customary" behavior
/set notify_interval 120 makes it only check every 2 minutes
/set notify_interval 150 makes it check only twice every 5 mins
at minutes 3 (180s) and 5 (300s).
*** News 07/28/97 -- Two new /SETs, AUTO_REJOIN_DELAY and AUTO_RECONNET_DELAY
These two control the amount of time that must pass between when
you are kicked or killed, and the time that you attempt to rejoin
or reconnect. Reconnect is probably not totaly intuitive, as it
attempts to bind the server to the current window *at the time that
the timer expires*, not the window that was disconnected from.
Arguably, this is a bug, and may be "fixed" in the future. The
implementation for these is kind of hairy.
EPIC4pre1
*** News 06/18/97 -- New feature, "CPU SAVER"
Some of you have asked me for a way to make ircII use less CPU
especially when you are idling and detached. Every minute ircII
sends out your notify list, parses the replies, checks the clock,
updates your status line, and other various housekeeping duties.
But when youre detached, you dont really care if your notifies
dont get processed promptly every 60 seconds, you dont care if
the clock is accurate every moment, and you would prefer that
the client not go to the trouble of wasting CPU time just to
keep track. This wont help if youre on busy channels, or
logging wallops, only if the only traffic youre getting are
the pings from the server.
There are several new sets:
/set CPU_SAVER_AFTER - If you havent typed anything after
this many minutes, CPU saver mode activates.
/set CPU_SAVER_EVERY - If cpu saver mode is on, the client will
only do housekeeping every this many minutes.
If either of these two are 0, then cpu saver mode cannot be
activated, and the "traditional" behavior will apply.
If youre interested in seeing when the client is in cpu saver
mode, there is a new status line expando, "%L". There is also
a new /set, /SET STATUS_CPU_SAVER which determines how the %L
expando will look when it is activated (just like STATUS_MAIL)
There is also a new keybinding, "CPU_SAVER", which if bound to
a key will activate cpu saver mode without having to wait.
I did this on a whim, mostly because i havent done any features
in a long time that have required this many changes, and I wanted
to have some fun, so i just let loose with this and went berzerk
If i forgot some obscure feature with this, let me know! ;-)
*** News 05/31/97 -- New environment variable honored, ``IRC_SERVERS_FILE''
Someone had suggested something close to this -- they wanted a
way to specify a SERVERS_FILE as an absolute path rather than
having it in their irclib directory. So you can now set this
environment variable to an absolute path where you would like the
client to get your server list from. This overrides any
built in SERVERS_FILE setting, if appropriate.
*** News 05/31/97 -- Semantic clarification for /TOPIC
Due to the confusion between the very common ``topic'' alias
and the built in TOPIC command syntax, I have expanded the
built in TOPIC command to do everything that everyone expects
TOPIC to do, towit:
/topic This is a topic (set current channel topic)
/topic * This is a topic (same thing)
/topic (see topic on current chan)
/topic * (same thing.)
/topic #chan This is atopic (set topic on #chan)
I strongly advise you to throw away your /topic alias unless it
does something up and beyond this. If it does, let me know, and
I can include its semantics in the client, if its reasonable.
*** News 05/19/97 -- All new syntax for /IF
As if ircII wasnt becoming PERLish enough, ive modified the
/IF command to be more perl-like: You may now use the
"elsif" modifier to indicate a blocked if command, eg:
if (....) {
....
} elsif (...) {
....
} elsif (...) {
....
} else {
....
}
(The final "else" is optional.) Note that the placement of
the "elsif" and "else" modifiers is critical: They MUST be
on the same line as the closing } to which they modify, or the
/LOAD parser will get totaly confused and munge the whole
thing up. This is a limitation that applies only to how
scripts are loaded -- sorry.
*** News 05/09/97 -- New function added, $findw(word ...text ...)
This addresses the two most common complaints people have
about $[r]match():
1) This function returns the WORD NUMBER of the word
in text, such that $word($findw(word .text.) .text.)
returns "word". It returns -1 if word is not found.
2) This function does not do anything screwy about quoting
or unquoting your input. It just looks for the word,
thats it. No pattern matching, no frills, and its fast.
*** News 05/09/97 -- Semantic weakness closed
There was a semantic weakness with respect to the word count
and strlen modifiers ($#var and $@var) such that if you did
not provide a variable to modify, an unuseful value was returned.
Since this was likely to cause confusion, these cases are now
defined to implicitly assume $* as the default argument. eg:
$# all by itself is now the same as $numwords($*)
$@ all by itself is now the same as $strlen($*)
These are *NOT* built in functions. The # and @ characters
still are considered to be modifiers. The weakness was that
these modifiers did not return meaningful values when a value to
modify was not provided: This change stipulates a useful default.
In a seperate, but related topic, a change was also made to
the math parser to honor this change in that context. That
is to say, @ foo = # now assigns to `foo' the number of
arguments in the current context. NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A
FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE! We're just saying that the default value
for the # and @ modifiers is $*. This is not a "function"!
*** News 05/05/97 -- New flag to /WINDOW, /WINDOW LASTLOG
/WINDOW LASTLOG lets you individually tweak the size of a
window's lastlog. This was introduced because this used to
be the default beahavior of /set lastlog, but now that /set
lastlog is a global action, we still need a way to do this...
*** News 04/29/97 -- New /set, /SET QUIT_MESSAGE
This will be your default quit message. If you do something
stupid, like unset this completely, the client's version will
be used as the default. Of course, any argument you pass to
/quit or /signoff will override this /set.
*** News 04/29/97 -- New /set, /SET DISPATCH_UNKNOWN_COMMAND
If you type a command that is not recognized by the client,
and youre one of those people who /never/ mistype a command,
then you can /set this to ON, and the client will dispatch any
otherwise unrecognized commands to the server. Im sure your
server admin will love you if you do this.
*** News 04/29/97 -- New built in function, $winchan() <THIS HAS BEEN CHANGED>
You give it a channel name, and an optional server name
or server refnum, and it tells you what window refnum that
channel belongs to. (Written by IceKarma)
*** News 04/29/97 -- New flag to /lastlog, /lastlog -max
You can use /LASTLOG -MAX to specify the maximum number
of matches you want to display, regardless of any other
flags. The default is no limit. This was written by Sheik.
*** News 04/29/97 -- New functionality to /stack, /stack set
You can now do /STACK (PUSH|POP|LIST) SET just as you can
already with ALIAS/ASSIGN/ON. This was written by Colten.
*** News 04/21/97 -- New set, /SET BANNER
The /SET BANNER variable now controls what special banner will
be prepended to informational messages from the client. Up until
now, the banner has been three stars ("***"), and many people dont
like that or want to be able to change it. Now you can.
*** News 04/21/97 -- New on, /ON SET
/ON SET is a way to extend the capabilities of the /set command.
The /ON SET hook is passed two or more arguments, with
$0 -- is the name of the variable to be set
$1- -- is the value the variable will be set to.
The main idea is the ability to offer /set variables that are
not built into the client, and execute ircII code to handle that
situation. The other idea is the ability to suppliment or override
a built-in set variable when it is changed.
If you hook /ON SET with the "SILENT" modifier ('^'), then the
default action (if any) will not be taken. This may mean that
if the variable is not a built in variable, no error will be
output. If the variable IS a built in variable, then the variable
will NOT be set after the fact.
There are two ways to get around this: You can either hook the
/ON SET with the "quiet" modifier ('-'), or you can use the /set
command inside of the /on set body. If you attempt to /set a
variable that is already being parsed by /on set, you will NOT
be offered the /on again -- it will directly set the variable:
Example:
on ^set "exec_protection off" {
echo *** You cannot set EXEC_PROTECTION off!
set exec_protection on
}
Or:
on ^set "auto_rejoin_delay *" {
echo *** AUTO REJOIN delay set to [$1] seconds.
@ myscript.autorejoin.delay = [$1]
}
Then you could do:
/set auto_rejoin_delay 4
*** News 04/17/97 -- $X now reflects your ``real'' userhost
When you connect to a server, the client asks the
server what your userhost is, and then that value is
reflected in the $X variable. Different server connections
may have different $X values.
*** News 04/17/97 -- Changed semantics for USERHOST command
The userhost command will act the same as always, except
under the following condition:
If you do /userhost <nick(s)> -cmd, and *every* nick so
specified is on one of the channel(s) you are on (so that
the client already has the userhost cached), then the -cmd
code will be executed immediately, and the client will *NOT*
ask the server for the userhost information. You are 100%
guaranteed still to get accurate information, you will just
get it without waiting for the server query! The only caveat
is that the AWAY and OPER fields will be specified with the
false value. If you currently use the /userhost command to
determine if a person is an operator, keep reading.
A new flag has been added to the USERHOST command, -direct.
The -direct flag forces the client to do a server query for
the specified nicknames, even if all of the nicknames are
known to the client beforehand. This can be used to get
accurate AWAY and OPER information. This flag only makes sense
with the -cmd flag, since userhost caching does not happen
unless the -cmd flag is specified.
*** News 04/10/97 -- Two new operators =~ and !~
The two operators are intended to be similar to the perl operators:
The lhs of the operator is expected to be a plaintext string, and
The rhs of the operator is expected to be a wildcard expression.
The operator returns a true value if the pattern matches the text,
and it returns the false value if it does not.
This is intended to be a low-cost alternative to the $match() and
$rmatch() built-in functions when the only thing you need to do is
see if a string is matched by a pattern. If you need to select
from more than one pattern, use $match() or $rmatch().
*** News 04/07/97 -- Asynchronous code may use local variables
You may reference local variables in asynchronous code
provided that you follow the rules that have already been
laid down. See the regress/kill script for more info.
1) You have to use /bless in the asynchronous code in order
to have access to the underlying local variables.
2) You have to use /wait in the synchronous code in order to
make sure the local variables dont go away.
3) Make sure you clean up your own messes. Asynchronous code
lying around, resulting in /bless calls when there is no
context for local variables is not a good thing.
*** News 03/31/97 -- New argument to /WAIT command, ``for''
Yes, ``for'' without a hyphen. This command guarantees that
the code given as the argument is executed synchronously.
That is to say, if the arguments, when executed, sent something
to the server, the command will not return until that request
has been completed (as if a wait had been done.) But if the
code does not send a query to the server, no wait is executed,
and the command returns immediately after the code completes.
You can also mix and match ``wait for'' with regular ``wait''
calls and the client will be able to figure out what to do
without waiting extra more than it needs to.
And as always, using /wait or /wait for and /redirect at the
same tims is a bad thing (tm), so dont do it. The result is
undefined behavior (eg, what happens isnt my fault.)
*** News 03/19/97 -- About the new who/ison (and soon userhost) queues.
The client now keeps a FIFO (queue) of who/ison/userhost queries
you make. It is *critically* important that you do not confuse
these queues (due to the nature of these server queries, there is
no way to have any reasonable error recovery).
The following behaviors are forbidden (but the client wont stop
you from doing them)
* Using /ON ^RAW_IRC to wedge the 303, 351, or 315 numerics.
If you do this, the queues wont be properly flushed, anyone
waiting on a proper reply wont be handled, and any further
reqeusts will be thought to be previous queries, and all hell
will break loose.
* Using /QUOTE to launch USERHOST, ISON, or WHO requests..
If you do this, the client will whine at you when it gets
unexpected replies and will eat the information. If you launch
another query before the invalid one finishes, all hell will
break loose.
*** THERE IS NO WAY TO RECOVER IF YOU DO THESE THINGS ***
If youre stupid enough to do it, you get what you deserve.
*** News 03/18/97 -- Expanded syntax for $userhost()
For your convenience, the $userhost() function now takes arguments:
You may specify one or more nicknames as arguments to the $userhost()
function, and the corresponding userhost(s) for the nick(s) specified
will be returned. The string <UNKNOWN>@<UNKNOWN> will be inserted
for any nicknames whose userhost is not known. The nickname(s)
speified *must* be people who are on channels you are also on for
the current server! (See the second caveat)
* Caveat -- Because it can take time for the WHO query to complete
after you join a channel, there is no definite way to know if
$userhost() for a person on your channel will succeed or not.
You should probably be prepared to launch a /USERHOST query in
case of failure. This deficiency may be altered or modified in
the future to block if an otherwise valid request is made while
a WHO query is still pending.
* Caveat -- This function will never be modified to launch a server
query. That means that this function will only ever recognize those
nicknames that are common to channels you are on. If you want to find
the userhost for other users, you should use the /userhost command.
It is expected that the /userhost command will soon be able to
take advantage of the userhost caching (but it does not yet.)
*** News 03/18/97 -- Expanded syntax for /who
For your convenience, the /who command now takes two new arguments:
-line {...} The code inside the braces will be executed for each
line returned by the who query. The arguments are
exactly the same as for the /on who hook, except that
this flag is *guaranteed* to override the default
/on who, and will also *go away* when the current who
query is finished.
-end {...} The code inside the braces will be executed at the
end of the who query, when the 315 numeric is parsed.
The arguments are:
$0 - server queried
$1 - body of the query
This is guaranteed to toverride the default /on 315,
and will also go away once the current who query is
completed.
These command bodies will be executed asynchronously, which means
that you must assume that the enclosing code scope will complete
before the code is ever executed (e.g., the same rules as for the
/userhost -cmd flag.) unless you use /wait. You are encouraged
to not use /wait if you can figure a way around it. Code that is
not concerned with being stricly backwards compatable with the
stock client is ***strongly encouraged*** to use these new flags.
Underlying this change is a new re-entrant WHO queue, which allows
you to launch more than one WHO query simultaneously. No longer do
concurrent WHO requests have to wait for previous queries to complete,
and no longer (with the above flags) does the caller need to put the
WHO command in a /stack-/on-/wait wrapper.
*** News 03/17/97 -- /on 312, /on 319 changes
All of the whois numerics: 311, 312, 313, 314, 317, 318, 319
now pass $0 as the server name and $1 as the target of the
whois query. All the rest of the arguments are passed as $2-.
Previously, some of these numerics passed the target as $1,
but not all of them. I changed it this way for consistancy.
*** News 03/17/97 -- New: /ON STATUS_UPDATE and $status()
/ON STATUS_UPDATE is hooked whenever any of the status lines
for any of the visible windows changes **and you are in dumb mode**:
$0 is the refnum for the window whose status line has changed
$1 is the status line in that window that has changed
$2- is the actual status line for that window.
$status() can be used to fetch the current status line for any
visible window. Invisible windows do not have their status lines
updated, so they may be inaccurate. This problem may change in
the future. Pass two arguments:
$0 is the refnum for a window
$1 is the status line
*** News 03/02/97 -- Local variables can now span entire array tree
The syntax:
``local x.y.''
will define all variables in the subarray $x[y][...] to be
implicitly considered local variables. That is to say, the
entire variable tree rooted at $x[y] is local to that scope.
This was requested by a user for compatability with another
client. All local variables that are instantiated in this
manner have the same scope as the explicit declaration above.
*** News 02/18/97 -- New built in variable, /SET CONNECT_TIMEOUT <seconds>
Set this to the number of seconds you want your connect()ions to
block before they time out. Note that this doesnt affect
connect()ions that are already in progress, only those that are
started after you set it. The default is 30.
*** News 01/30/97 -- Expanded syntax for /LOCAL, /STUB
You may now specify more than one name per command: Each name
will be treated independantly of all others. The names must be
seperated by a comma, and ***must not*** have any spaces between
the commas and the names (that is, all of the names must form one
logical word). To declare both "foo" and "bar" as local vars,
/local foo,bar
You can do this to stub more than one alias/assign to the same
file, as well:
/stub foo,bar filename
*** News 01/29/97 -- New command /BLESS
Currently this command ignores its arguments. This may change
in the future, so you should not get in the habit of supplying
arguments to this function, for forwards compatability.
The ''BLESS'' command is used to allow an asynchronous scope to
access the local variables of the underlying synchronous context:
alias foobar {
local myvar $0
userhost $1- -cmd {
bless
echo $myvar -- $0!$3@$4
}
wait
}
Note that the use of 'bless' must be paired with an appropriate
call of ``wait'' in the synchronous context, or this wont work.
*** News 01/27/97 -- New flag for /EXEC, -direct
Syntax:
/EXEC -direct <commands>
This simulates the effect that unsetting the SHELL variable
causes, that is, the command is executed directly, without
invoking a subshell. This is appropriate for those who wish
to execute a command passing untrusted data as an argument:
With this flag, there would be no shell to interpret metacharacters,
thus cutting down on that ability to have an accidental back door.
*** News 01/27/97 -- New command, /SETENV
Syntax:
/SETENV <var-name> <new-val>
Sets the process environment variable <var-name> to the value of
<new-val>. This command is not neccesarily useful, nor is it
always appropriate, but it is provided for completeness. There
are several places in the code that can benefit from the ability
to change environment variables after startup (eg, TZ). It also
allows you to set environment variables for /exec'd processes,
and it is also possible to really foul things up if you mangle
important environment variables such as DISPLAY and so on.
*** News 01/24/97 -- New, /ON ODD_SERVER_STUFF
This is hooked whenever the server sends you something
that the client doesnt recognize. This is usually when
you try to connect to a non ircd server, or you use some
extension that isnt yet supported. You are strongly
encouraged to use this interface to support new features
rather than using /on raw_irc because this hook is only
activated when something unexpected occurs (which is rare),
rather than for every incoming line, as raw_irc does.
$0 is the server that sent it to you, '*' if unknown
$1- is the unrecognized command and its arguments.
*** News 01/22/97 -- /FE, /FOREACH use local variables now
The "control variables" for the /FE and /FOREACH command
now are local variables. They will not disturb global variables,
but they will destroy any local variables you have by the same
name. You dont have to explicitly declare the variables as local,
it is done automatically for you. Note that the normal warnings
for local variables still apply -- dont use any variable name that
is the same as a global variable you might want to use later in
the same alias/on.
*** News 01/18/97 -- Support for local variables
You may define a local variable with the following command:
LOCAL <varname> [<value>]
It mirrors the ASSIGN command. Note that local variables act
in exactly the same way as normal variables, except you cannot
get rid of them. You also do not (yet) have any way to get at
a global variable that has the same name as a local variable, so
choose wisely. An example:
alias foobar
{
local b (declare LOCAL var $b as [])
assign a 4 (assigns 4 to GLOBAL $a)
local a 5 (assigns 5 to LOCAL $a)
eval echo $a (outputs '5' -- local)
@ a = [] (clears LOCAL variable)
eval echo $a (outputs '' -- local)
}
Restrictions:
* You cannot have local aliases -- only local variables
* You cannot save local variables.
* You cannot (yet) access a global variable with the same name
as a local variable.
This support is EXPERIMENTAL and still has some development to go
before it is mature.
[This file truncated for EPIC4pre1... the rest of it is available via
ftp at ftp.acronet.net]
[[ Additional note ]]
People are apparantly looking in here to see where some of the features
(like translation tables) went to. Please refer to "doc/missing" before
reporting a removed feature as a bug. Thanks.