andrew ruder :: tag :: zirc

Well, I was bored out of my skull this last weekend and I had talked recently with a person about the fact that ZSH had asynchronous file-descriptor polling support and builtin TCP connections. Well, these are the only two ingredients you need for an IRC client!

So, I proudly (sort of) present ZIRC. The only IRC client that I know of that is completely implemented and integrated into your favorite shell (zsh). "Big deal" you think, "Anybody can pipe a bunch of input into telnet and make a crappy IRC client." Well, my friends, ZIRC is 100% shell code. There is not a single command used in the entire source code that is not a builtin to zsh.

Not only is it a shell script, but this thing is actually *integrated* into your shell script. You're typing along some nasty 1-liner script to sort your mp3s by author and someone messages you. ZIRC interrupts you with a message from your favorite IRC channel, and then it goes right BACK to where you were typing. Beautiful! If you run mutt for a bit to check your email and someone messages you, it'll wait til you get out of the program to process it.

Yes... it is stupid, but I made it, and therefore, it rocks. Obligatory screenshot.

The source. Docs are at top.

And as always, have fun!