nethirc(1)

NAME
NetHirc - a bad pun and an IRC client

SYNOPSIS
nethirc -s server [-dl] [-n nick] [-p port] [-i ircname] [-u userfake] [-h localaddr] [-c chanlist]

DESCRIPTION
NetHirc is an IRC client written entirely in Perl, with the help of the Net::IRC modules from CPAN. It is very smart about most things, and intentionally very dumb when dealing with the terminal. It is named NetHirc because of the influence of nethack, which is the theme behind many of the things that NetHirc prints on the screen.

OPTIONS
NetHirc's command line interface is intentionally a bit different than that of ircII, arguably the standard IRC client.

The -s option must be present for things to behave as you expect. There is a default server in the executable, but it is likely not one that you want.

The -d option turns on internal debugging. This is not very useful unless you're a NetHirc developer, or you want to see the raw IRC messages (and a bunch of other stuff) go by.

The -n option is used to specify a nick to use to connect to the server you specified with the -s option. If you do not explictly specify a nickname, expect to get stuck with the contents of the IRCNICK environment variable, your login name, or whatever Net::IRC thinks is appropriate.

The -p option specifies a port (other than the default 6667) to use to connect to the IRC server.

The -i option specifies a witty string to use as your ircname. If you don't give one, and the IRCNAME environment variable is not set, Net::IRC will choose one for you.

The -u option specifies a userfake string to be used in place of your real login. Servers which do IDENT checks on their clients will either ignore what you put here (and blindly accept what IDENT says) or throw a hissy fit if there is a discrepancy. Your best defense against this is with a falsifying IDENT server, but it is not the job of this manpage to make one available to you.

The -h option is stolen from ircII, and specifies the hostname by which your machine is to be known. If DNS doesn't check out on this hostname, don't expect the IRC server to like you very much.

The -c option specifies a comma-separated list of channels you want to join when you first sign on to the IRC server in question.

The -l option turns on logging immediately upon connection to the IRC server.

USAGE
Start the client. Have fun. Yell at people. There is a full command set at your disposal. Those used to ircII should have no problem with the default NetHirc command set. If this is too limiting, you are free to modify the behaviour of NetHirc by consulting the HACKING file referenced below.

EXIT STATUS
Does it really matter?

FILES

~/.nhircrc is the startup file that contains commands to be executed at the programs earliest convenience.

/usr/local/share/nethirc is a directory of support files. Much more information about the workings of NetHirc can be found there, including the all-important HACKING file.

ENVIRONMENT

The IRCNAME and IRCNICK variables retain their usual meaning. The NHIRCLIB variable is a colon-separated list of directories which contain support files for NetHirc. You may see various "No such file or directory" messages as nethirc searches through these directories; only on the most fatal of errors will it bomb out entirely.

SEE ALSO
perl(1), hoserchat(1), fortune(6), nethack(6), ed(1)

BUGS
are in the eye of the beholder. If you find one, please let me know.

AUTHOR
Tony Monroe (tony@nog.net), sometimes known as Eggplant on EFnet.

HISTORY

NetHirc was written in a fit of experimentation and madness and frustration with a previous creation known as hoserchat. The main idea was, of course, "Wouldn't a Nethack-like IRC client be cool? Or at least amusing?" And so, several months of on-and-off development time later, I feel that the world won't wince too much at the sight of version 0.01 of this program. So it was released.

This manpage documents version 0.04 of NetHirc.