pyCAT

A simplified irccat 'clone'.

Main features of pyCAT are:

1. Listen on a given port and relay messages to an IRC channel.

2. Send messages in channel to an external script for parsing, passing output back to channel.

Dependencies

pyCAT requires Python and irclib.py (http://python-irclib.sourceforge.net/).

Usage

Usage: pycat.py server[:port][,server[:port]] nickname channel [options]

Options:
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug           set log-level to debug
  --no-deop             prevent bot from deoping itself
  --op-first            op first user to join channel if bot is alone
  --listen=[addr]:port  address to bind listener to
  --realname=name       realname to provide to IRC server
  --script=path         script to send messages to
  --args=arg            extra arugments to send script

Examples:
  Connect to irc.efnet.net, with nick cat, name 'Majo nes', script /foo/bar:
    pycat.py irc.efnet.net cat efnet --realname='Majo Nes' --script=/foo/bar
  Use multiple fallbacks on IRCnet, nick cat, channel pycat
    pycat.py irc.ifi.uio.no,irc.hitos.no,irc.pvv.org:6668 cat '#pycat'
  Connect to localhost, listen on port 12345 on all interfaces:
    pycat.py localhost cat '#pycat' --listen=12345
  Connect to irc.freenode.net, listen on port 8000 on a specific interface:
    pycat.py irc.freenode.net cat '#pycat' --listen=example.com:8000

Running

By default pyCAT will not listen or pass messages to any scripts. This functionality is strictly opt-in.

pycat irc.example.com pycat #pycat

Will start the bot without the listener or message parsing enabled. For more details on how to run pycat execute pycat --help.

Listen: To enable the listen feature start pycat with --listen address:port and the bot will listen for messages on the specified interface and port. Messages that start with /me or /notice will be converted to CTCP ACTIONs and NOTICE commands.

pycat server pycat #pycat --listen 12345 &
echo "Hello world" | nc localhost 12345

Will bind port 12345 on all interfaces. Sending messages can easily be achieved with netcat. Messages starting with @ or # will be interpreted as messages intended for the given nick or channel. If the user is not in the same channel as the bot the message will be discarded.

pycat server pycat #pycat --listen 12345 &
echo "@foo Hello foo" | nc 12345
echo "@foo,@bar,#pycat Hello all" | nc 12345

Script: Starting pycat with --script path instructs the bot to execute the file found at path with:

pycat $NICK $TARGET $SOURCE $MESSAGE

Any data written back to STDOUT will be sent to the same place the message originates from. Normally only messages that start with ! will be sent to the script. When the bot starts or when the script is modified it will be called with --config nick. The script should reply with key = value config settings. Currently only match = regexp is supported, this setting modifies which messages are sent to the script. See example.sh for simple hello world script.

License

pyCAT is released under the MIT license, see COPYING.

Inspiration

There is no hiding the fact that this project is inspired by irccat (http://github.com/RJ/irccat).