<!DOCTYPE article SYSTEM "supybot.dtd">
<article>
<articleinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Jeremiah</firstname>
<surname>Fincher</surname>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Daniel</firstname>
<surname>DiPaolo</surname>
</author>
<editor>
<firstname>Daniel</firstname>
<surname>DiPaolo</surname>
<contrib>DocBook translator</contrib>
</editor>
</authorgroup>
<title>Supybot configuration system explanation</title>
<revhistory>
<revision>
<revnumber>0.1</revnumber>
<date>18 Feb 2004</date>
<revremark>Initial Docbook translation</revremark>
</revision>
<revision>
<revnumber>0.2</revnumber>
<date>26 Feb 2004</date>
<revremark>Conversion to Supybot DTD</revremark>
</revision>
<revision>
<revnumber>0.3</revnumber>
<date>4 Sep 2004</date>
<revremark>Update Docbook translation</revremark>
</revision>
</revhistory>
</articleinfo>
<sect1>
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
So you've got your Supybot up and running and there are some
things you don't like about it. Fortunately for you, chances are
that these things are configurable, and this document is here to
tell you how to configure them.
</para>
<para>
Configuration of Supybot is handled via the
<plugin>Config</plugin> plugin, which controls runtime access to
Supybot's registry (the configuration file generated by the
<script>supybot-wizard</script> program you ran). The
<plugin>Config</plugin> plugin provides a way to get or set
variables, to list the available variables, and even to get help
for certain variables. Take a moment now to read the help for
each of those commands: <botcommand>config</botcommand>,
<botcommand>list</botcommand>, and
<botcommand>help</botcommand>. If you don't know how to get help on
those commands, go ahead and read our
<filename>GETTING_STARTED</filename> document before this one.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Supybot's registry</title>
<para>
Now, if you're used to the Windows registry, don't worry,
Supybot's registry is completely different. For one, it's
completely plain text. There's no binary database sensitive to
corruption, it's not necessary to use another program to edit it
– all you need is a simple text editor. But there is at
least one good idea in Windows' registry: hierarchical
configuration. Supybot's configuration variables are organized in
a hierarchy: variables having to do with the way Supybot makes
replies all start with
<registrygroup>supybot.reply</registrygroup>; variables having to
do with the way a plugin works all start with
<registrygroup>supybot.plugins.Plugin</registrygroup> (where
<plugin>Plugin</plugin> is the name of the plugin in question).
This hierarchy is nice because it means the user isn't inundated
with hundreds of unrelated and unsorted configuration variables.
</para>
<para>
Some of the more important configuration values are located
directly under the base group,
<registrygroup>supybot</registrygroup>. Things like the bot's
nick, its ident, etc. Along with these config values are a few
subgroups that contain other values. Some of the more prominent
subgroups are: <registrygroup>plugins</registrygroup> (where all
the plugin-specific configuration is held),
<registrygroup>reply</registrygroup> (where variables affecting
the way a Supybot makes its replies resides),
<registrygroup>replies</registrygroup> (where all the specific
standard replies are kept), and
<registrygroup>directories</registrygroup> (where all the
directories a Supybot uses are defined). There are other
subgroups as well, but these are the ones we'll use in our
example.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>Config plugin commands</title>
<sect3>
<title>Listing registry contents</title>
<para>
Using the <plugin>Config</plugin> plugin, you can list
the values in a subgroup and get or set any of the values
anywhere in the configuration hierarchy. For example,
let's say you wanted to see what configuration values were
under the <registrygroup>supybot</registrygroup> (the base
group) hierarchy. You would simply issue this command:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config list supybot
<supybot> @capabilities, @commands, @databases, @debug, @directories, @drivers,
@log, @networks, @nick, @plugins, @protocols, @replies, @reply,
alwaysJoinOnInvite, channels, defaultIgnore, defaultSocketTimeout,
externalIP, flush, followIdentificationThroughNickChanges,
humanTimestampFormat, ident, pidFile, snarfThrottle, upkeepInterval,
and user
</ircsession>
<para>
These are all the configuration groups and values which
are under the base <registrygroup>supybot</registrygroup>
group. Actually, their full names would each have a
“supybot.” appended on to the front of them,
but it is omitted in the listing in order to shorten the
output. The first entries in the output are the groups
(distinguished by the @ symbol in front of them), and the
rest are the configuration values.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect2>
<title>Supybot's registry</title>
<sect3>
<title>Dealing with registry values</title>
<para>
Okay, now that you've used the <plugin>Config</plugin>
plugin to list configuration variables, it's time that we
start looking at individual variables and their values.
</para>
<sect4>
<title>Built-in help for registry values</title>
<para>
The first (and perhaps most important) thing you
should know about each configuration variable is that
they all have an associated help string to tell you
what they represent. So the first command we'll cover
is <botcommand>config help</botcommand>. To see the
help string for any value or group, simply use the
<botcommand>config help</botcommand> command. For
example, to see what this
<registrygroup>supybot.snarfThrottle</registrygroup>
configuration variable is all about, we'd do this:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config help supybot.snarfThrottle
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: A floating point number of seconds to throttle snarfed
URLs, in order to prevent loops between two bots snarfing the same URLs and
having the snarfed URL in the output of the snarf message. (Current value:
10.0)
</ircsession>
<para>
Pretty simple, eh?
</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title>Getting/setting registry values</title>
<para>
Now, if you're curious what the current value of a
configuration variable is, you'll use the
<botcommand>config</botcommand> command with one
argument, the name of the variable you want to see the
value of:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: '@'
</ircsession>
<para>
To set this value, just stick an extra argument after
the name:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars @$
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: The operation succeeded.
</ircsession>
<para>
Now, check this out:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> $config supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: '@$'
</ircsession>
<para>
Note that we used <literal>$</literal> as our prefix
character, and that the value of the configuration
variable changed. If I were to use the
<botcommand>flush</botcommand> command now, this
change would be flushed to the registry file on disk
(this would also happen if I made the bot quit, or
pressed
<keycombo>
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap>
<keycap>C</keycap>
</keycombo>
in the terminal the bot was running in). Instead,
I'll revert the change:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> $config supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars @
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: The operation succeeded.
<jemfinch|lambda> $note that this makes no response.
</ircsession>
<para>
If you're ever curious what the default for a given
configuration variable is, use the <botcommand>config
default</botcommand> command:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config default supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: ''
</ircsession>
<para>
Thus, to reset a configuration variable to its default
value, you can simply say:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars [config default
supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars]
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda: The operation succeeded.
<jemfinch|lambda> @note that this does nothing
</ircsession>
<para>
Simple, eh?
</para>
</sect4>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Searching the registry</title>
<para>
Now, let's say you want to find all configuration
variables that might be even remotely related to opping.
For that, you'll want the <botcommand>config
search</botcommand> command. Check this out:
</para>
<ircsession>
<jemfinch|lambda> @config search op
<supybot> jemfinch|lambda:
supybot.plugins.Enforcer.autoOp,
supybot.plugins.Enforcer.autoHalfop,
supybot.plugins.Enforcer.takeRevenge.onOps,
supybot.plugins.Enforcer.cycleToGetOps,
supybot.plugins.Topic, supybot.plugins.Topic.public,
supybot.plugins.Topic.separator,
supybot.plugins.Topic.format,
supybot.plugins.Topic.recognizeTopiclen,
supybot.plugins.Topic.default,
supybot.plugins.Topic.undo.maz, and
supybot.plugins.Relay.topicSync
</ircsession>
<para>
Sure, it showed up all the topic-related stuff in there,
but it also showed you all the op-related stuff, too. Do
note, however, that you can only see configuration
variables for plugins that you have loaded or that you
loaded in the past; if you've never loaded a plugin,
there's no way for the bot to know what configuration
variables it registers.
</para>
<para>
Some people might like editing their registry file
directly rather than manipulating all these things through
the bot. For those people, we offer the
<botcommand>config reload</botcommand> command, which
reloads both registry configuration and
user/channel/ignore database configuration. Just edit the
interesting files and then give the bot the
<botcommand>config reload</botcommand> command and it'll
work as expected. Do note, however, that Supybot flushes
his configuration files and databases to disk every hour
or so, and if this happens after you've edited your
configuration files but before you reload your changes,
you could lose the changes you made. To prevent this, set
the <registrygroup>supybot.flush</registrygroup> value to
<literal>Off</literal>, and no automatic flushing will
occur.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Channel-specific configuration</title>
<para>
Many configuration variables can be specific to individual
channels. The <plugin>Config</plugin> plugin provides an
easy way to configure something for a specific channel;
for instance, in order to set the prefix chars for a
specific channel, do this in that channel:
</para>
<ircsession>
config channel supybot.reply.whenAddressedBy.chars !
</ircsession>
<para>
That'll set the prefix chars in the channel that message
is sent in to <literal>!</literal>. Voila,
channel-specific values!
</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>All done!</title>
<para>
Anyway, that's about it for configuration. Have fun, and enjoy
your configurable bot!
</para>
</sect1>
</article>