Net::IRC 0.72 README        T.J. Eckman           Mon Jul 02 00:00:00 GMT 2000
==============================================================================

Table of Contents
------------------------

1.  Introduction
2.  Availability
3.  Prerequisites
4.  Installation
+-  4.1  Windows Installation
5.  Demonstration Script
6.  Bugs
7.  Disclaimer
8.  Copyright
9.  Developer Information



1. Introduction
------------------------

    Welcome to Net::IRC, a work in progress. First intended to be a quick tool
for writing an IRC script in Perl, Net::IRC has grown into a comprehensive
Perl implementation of the IRC protocol (RFC 1459), supported and developed by
several members of the EFnet IRC channel #net-irc.

    Please read the Changes file for details about recent updates, and the
Bugs section of this document for notes about future improvements. This is
the second version of Net::IRC to come with documentation... albeit incomplete
and not terribly useful documentation, but we'll get it fleshed out soon
enough, so bear with us.

    PLEASE send the authors feedback and advice. Contact information can be
found at the end of this file. Writing really annoying bots with this module
is punishable by having merlyn sing "The Rainbow Connection" to you... watch
your step.



2. Availability
------------------------

	CPAN, of course. http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/by-module/Net/



3. Prerequisites
------------------------

    Net::IRC requires Perl version 5.004 or higher to install and run.
Hypothetically, it could run on 5.003_9something with IO::* installed, but
you may as well upgrade anyhow. The latest version of Perl can be found at
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/latest.tar.gz (for UNIX), or at
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/ for various non-Unix machines.

    Net::IRC tries to use the Time::HiRes module by default, but will fail
silently if you do not have it.  If you have Time::HiRes pacing settings
and calls to schedule() can be fractional.


4. Installation
------------------------

    Same old, same old. If you get through all these steps without anything
emitting horrible dire warning messages, you're all set. In particular, the
"perl Makefile.PL" will barf if run with older versions of Perl, but if you
read the Prerequisites section of this README, you already know that, right?

Do this, in the following order:

        perl Makefile.PL
        make
        make install

We don't have any automated tests yet, but they might be in the not-too-
distant future. You may instead wish to play around with the...

=> 4.1   Windows Installation

    If you don't have a copy of 'make' on your machine, the easiest way to
install this module is to unzip the file into a local directory, and
copy the component files like this:
	IRC.pm		=> path.to.perl/site/lib/Net/IRC.pm
	Connection.pm	=> path.to.perl/site/lib/Net/IRC/Connection.pm
	Event.pm	=> path.to.perl/site/lib/Net/IRC/Event.pm
	DCC.pm		=> path.to.perl/site/lib/Net/IRC/DCC.pm

5. Demonstration Script
------------------------

    A sample Net::IRC script is included with the distribution, under the
creative name "irctest". It doesn't do much more than connect to a server and
print annoying messages to anyone who talks to it, but that should be enough
to give you an idea of how the whole enchilada fits together until we actually
get some real documentation written. Just don't be surprised if IRC admins get
a clue about it and start killing it as soon as they see one log on...

	Oh, and by the way... if you say "Send me <filename>" to an irctest
bot, it will send the specified file (if it can) as a demonstration of
Net::IRC's DCC and scheduler interface. This is a potential security hole, so
be careful.



6. Bugs
------------------------

    Quite a few. Below are a list of the ones that have been identified
and are being worked on:
	-> Connecting fails mysteriously on some machines
	-> DCC seems to be full of small bugs
	-> Format system doesn't work
	-> Channels with a ':' in confuse the module

     Some improvements are also planned. If you in an idea that isn't 
implemented and isn't here, please send it again to jeek@jeek.net
	-> PPM Version
	-> Handling of unknow CTCP types


    Should you find one that we may have overlooked, PLEASE get in touch with
one of the developers (see section 8, below).



7. Disclaimer
------------------------

	Remember: The Net::IRC team is not responsible for HD crashes, power
supply meltdown, processor burnout, spontaneous silicon combustion, or nuclear
fallout resulting from the use of this product. Use at your own risk. It's
pretty stable, but weird stuff tends to happen anywhere computers are
involved...



8. Copyright
------------------------

    This is standard legal boilerplate stuff, I suppose. The names on the
copyright notice do NOT reflect in any way the time and effort put into this
project by lots of studly people, but if we did that, we'd have to start a
small corporation to handle them all in case of legal problems. :-)

Without further ado... *ahem* :

    This module copyright (c) 1997 Greg Bacon & Dennis Taylor. All rights
    reserved. This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License, distributed with
    this module.

    Any changes after 0.70, but before 0.72, are copyright Peter Sergeant,
    and/or the people who submitted them.

    Any changes after 0.71 are copyright T.J. Eckman, and/or the people
    who submitted them.


9. Developer Information
------------------------

    Maintenance is now handled by T.J. Eckman <jeek@jeek.net>.

    Submit bug reports and problems to T.J. Eckman <jeek@jeek.net>. If you're
looking for technical support for a Net::IRC script, your best bet is to ask on
EFNet #net-irc or the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup. Thanks!
