| 1 | IRK README | 
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| 2 | ========== | 
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| 3 |  | 
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| 4 | Welcome to IRK, a Tcl IRC client library. IRK is intended for Tcl | 
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| 5 | programmers that want to use the IRC protocol for communication. It | 
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| 6 | can be used to ease the creation of IRC "bots", as shown by the | 
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| 7 | examples in the examples directory, and it can also serve as the basis | 
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| 8 | for graphical chat clients. Finally, it can be used to allow IRKs to | 
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| 9 | find each other without centralized coordination, by meeting on a | 
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| 10 | designated IRC server and channel. It is therefore ideal for setting | 
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| 11 | up the initial contact for P2P programs without requiring a central | 
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| 12 | registry or server. | 
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| 13 |  | 
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| 14 | LICENSE | 
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| 15 | ======= | 
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| 16 |  | 
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| 17 | IRK is distributed under the BSD license, the same license as Tcl. | 
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| 18 |  | 
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| 19 | INSTALLATION | 
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| 20 | ============ | 
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| 21 |  | 
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| 22 | IRK is written in pure Tcl, which means it requires no extensions. It | 
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| 23 | works with Tcl 8.0 and all later releases of Tcl. | 
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| 24 |  | 
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| 25 | IRK has been tested on Solaris 7, Red Hat Linux 7.2, Windows 98, | 
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| 26 | Windows 2000 and FreeBSD 4.2. It should work on any platform that is | 
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| 27 | able to support Tcl 8.0 or later. | 
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| 28 |  | 
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| 29 | Just drop this directory into one of the directories in Tcl's auto | 
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| 30 | path. In your Tcl scripts, add the line: | 
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| 31 |  | 
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| 32 | package require irk | 
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| 33 |  | 
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| 34 | and the IRK package should load into your Tcl interpreter. | 
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| 35 |  | 
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| 36 | USAGE | 
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| 37 | ===== | 
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| 38 |  | 
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| 39 | Read docs/usage.txt for a short overview of the commands provided by | 
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| 40 | IRK. | 
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| 41 |  | 
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| 42 | RECENT CHANGES AND CURRENT VERSION | 
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| 43 | ================================== | 
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| 44 |  | 
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| 45 | Please read docs/changes.txt to see a list of all changes, ordered | 
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| 46 | chronologically by release. | 
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| 47 |  | 
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| 48 | REQUIREMENTS | 
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| 49 | ============ | 
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| 50 |  | 
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| 51 | IRK is event driven, and it requires the event loop to be active. If | 
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| 52 | you want to use IRK from tclsh or other programs embedding a Tcl | 
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| 53 | interpreter where the event loop is inactive, enter the event loop by | 
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| 54 | adding the following line somewhere in your program: | 
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| 55 |  | 
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| 56 | vwait infinitely | 
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| 57 |  | 
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| 58 | If you are using IRK in Wish, you do not need to take any action. | 
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| 59 |  | 
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| 60 | TODO | 
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| 61 | ==== | 
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| 62 |  | 
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| 63 | Please docs/todo.txt for a list of planned enhancements. | 
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| 64 |  | 
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| 65 | CREDITS AND CONTACT | 
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| 66 | =================== | 
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| 67 |  | 
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| 68 | IRK benefited from examination of the Zircon and savIRC code written | 
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| 69 | by Lindsay Marshall and Saverio Castellano, respectively. The future | 
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| 70 | OO wrapper API is based on an idea suggested by Dave N. Welton. | 
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| 71 |  | 
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| 72 | You can contact Jacob Levy, the author of IRK, at jyl@best.com. Please | 
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| 73 | do drop a note if you use IRK, or if you have suggestions for | 
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| 74 | enhancements, or if you run into problems. | 
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| 75 |  | 
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| 76 |  | 
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