pbot/README.md

PBot

PBot is a versatile IRC Bot written in Perl

• Features
  • Advanced Interpreter
  • Factoids
  • Code Factoids
  • Plugins
  • Modules
  • Channel management
  • Admin management
  • Useful IRC command improvements
  • Easy configuration
• Installation / Quick Start
• Documentation

Features

Advanced Interpreter

PBot has an advanced command interpreter with useful functionality.

• piping
• command substitution
• command separation
• inline commands
• $variable interpolation
• aliases
• and more!

Factoids

PBot has factoids with advanced features.

• metadata (e.g. owner, times used, last used date, locked, etc)
• advanced argument processing (indexing, splicing, etc)
• special commands: /say, /me, /msg, /code, etc
• advanced $variable interpolation ($var:lc to lowercase contents, $var:ucfirst to uppercase first letter, etc)
• factoid-based variable lists (e.g., add a factoid $colors containing “red green blue” and then !echo $colors will randomly pick one)
• changelog history
• undo/redo history
• and much, much more!

Code Factoids

Code factoids are a special type of factoid that begin with the /code command.

/code <language> <code>

That’s right! Anybody can create a factoid that can execute arbitrary code in any language! This is one of PBot’s most powerful features.

How is this safe? Because the code is executed within a virtual machine that has been configured to fall-back to a previously saved state whenever it times out.

Plugins

PBot can dynamically load and unload Perl modules to alter its behavior.

These are some of the plugins that PBot has, there are many more:

Plugin	Description
GoogleSearch	Performs Internet searches using the Google search engine.
UrlTitles	When a URL is seen in a channel, intelligently display its title. It will not display titles that are textually similiar to the URL, in order to maintain the channel signal-noise ratio.
Quotegrabs	Grabs channel messages as quotes for posterity. Can grab messages from anywhere in the channel history. Can grab multiple messages at once!
RemindMe	Lets people set up reminders. Lots of options.
ActionTrigger	Lets admins set regular expression triggers to execute PBot commands or factoids.
AntiAway	Detects when a person uses annoying in-channel away messages and warns them.
AutoRejoin	Automatically rejoin channels if kicked or removed.
AntiNickSpam	Detects when a person is spamming an excessive number of nicks in the channel and removes them.
AntiRepeat	Warn people about excessively repeating messages. Kicks if they fail to heed warnings.
AntiTwitter	Warn people about addressing others with @<nick>. Kicks if they fail to heed warnings.

There are even a few games!

Plugin	Description
Spinach	An advanced multiplayer Trivia game engine with a twist! A question is shown, everybody privately submits a false answer, all false answers and the true answer is shown, everybody tries to guess the true answer, points are gained when people pick your false answer!
Battleship	The classic Battleship board game, simplified for IRC
Connect4	The classic Connect-4 game.

Modules

PBot can execute any command-line program or script as an internal command. We call these modules.

These are just some of the more notable modules; there are several more:

Module	Description
C-to-English translator	Translates C code to natural English sentences.
C precedence analyzer	Adds parentheses to C code to demonstrate precedence.
C Jeopardy! game	C programming trivia game based on the Jeopardy! TV game show.
Virtual machine	Executes arbitrary code and commands within a virtual machine.
C Standard citations	Cite specified sections/paragraphs from the C standard.
dict.org Dictionary	Interface to dict.org for definitions, translations, acronyms, etc.
Urban Dictionary	Search Urban Dictionary for definitions.
Manpages	Display a concise formatting of manual pages (designed for C functions)

Channel management

PBot can perform the expected channel management tasks.

• opping/deopping, etc
• channel-mode tracking
• user hostmask/alias tracking
• ban-evasion detection
• flood detection
• whitelisting, blacklisting, etc
• spam/advertisement detection
• and much, much more

Admin management

PBot has easy admin management via simple built-in commands.

• admins can be global admins or channel-specific admins
• admins can be required to login with a password
• admins can be set to be permanently logged-in
• admin abilities configured by admin-levels

Useful IRC command improvements

• mode command can take wildcards, e.g. mode +ov foo* bar* to op nicks beginning with foo and voice nicks beginning with bar
• unban <nick> and unmute <nick> can remove all bans/mutes matching <nick>’s hostmask or account
• ban and mute will intelligently set banmasks; also supports timeouts
• ban and mute can take a comma-separate list of nicks. Will intelligently group them into multiple MODE +bbbb commands
• kick can take a comma-separated list of nicks
• kick can also accept wildcards
• and much, much, more

Easy configuration

PBot’s settings are contained in a central registry of key/value pairs grouped by sections.

These settings can easily be configured via several methods:

• PBot’s command-line arguments
• simple built-in commands (regset, regunset, etc)
• editing the $data_dir/registry plain-text JSON file

Installation / Quick Start

To get up-and-running quickly, check out the Quick Start guide.

Documentation

See the PBot documentation for more information.