IRC bot diary
From Bob's Basement
Wednesday 31st October
It's been a while since I have updated but the bot has been under heavy development over the last week or so. I've added some new features:
- Added !stats to give some info on a user. This is just the number of characters they have typed at the moment but I will add more things as I think of them.
- Added !tell to give users a message. The bot will pass the message on when the user is next active. I want to add this to PM as well
- Added !deal_with so that admins can get annoying people removed
- Added !lkick to repeatedly kick persistant offenders
- Added !unlkick just in case they talk the admin round!
- Added a socket interface so that admins and other programs can communicate easily with the bot.
- Added an authentication subsystem as I'm developing some features that require it
Sunday 7th October
- Changed the open_xml() code to receive a second argument giving the type of file to be downloaded
Friday 5th October
- Fixed a bug with the join channel function
The bot was set to only join the channel once a MoTD had been sucessfully received. This caused the bot to not attempt a join if the MoTD file was missing on the server. Set the bot to join on a MoTD or MoTD missing.
Sunday 5th August
- Fixed a bug in !seen which was a careless regex
- Did some more work on logging
- Worked on a HTML template for the IRC logs
Saturday 4th August
- Added !seen to show when users were last active
- Started work on logging
Type !seen <nick> to show when that nick was last seen. Unfortunately, joining the channel does not yet count as being seen.
Sunday 29th July
- Changed the !remind me syntax slights
- Changed the !remind me output so that it gives the name of the user the reminder is for.
- Changed the !tiny output so that it gives the name of the user that posted the URL.
- Added a rot13 encrypter/decrypter
Type !rot13 <text> to encrypt or decrypt the text.
Saturday 28th July
Pushed out the latest release into #bobsbasement. This includes Tiny URL and Remind me features.
Thursday 26th July
- Tidied up some of the code, which was a little more verbose than necessary. This is PERL after all!
- Added a tinyurl converter
There is now a !tiny <url> feature. Type !tiny, followed by a url in a PM and the bot will post the tiny URL into the channel. Note: This has to be done in a private message to jam-dev. This feature is only available in the dev release at the moment.
Tuesday 24th July
- Tidied up the whitespace as there were some issues with the nesting of some blocks of code which were making debugging an issue.
- Rewrote the XML file retrieval for the BBC feeds as there was some duplication.
- Moved the XML URLs into variables at the top of the code to make changes easier if the need arises.
- Registered the bots with NickServ
- Fixed a bug in the remind me script which was a poor regex causing issues with the reminder message.
- Added the breaking news facility
Remind me is available in the dev bot. Syntax is "remind me in <seconds> <message>". You can have upto 20 reminders active at one time. I will change the syntax so that you can enter the time in more appropriate units (minutes, hours, etc).

