Many of you have probaly heard of, IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Developed in 1988 by Jarkko Oikarinen, it was a great way to communicate, it still is.
Today, i will show you how to create a simple irc client that will Recive from an IRC server. If intresent is shown in this tutorial i will make a second one on how to send text as well.
Lets Begin.
First we will need to create a file that contains the data for the IRC server (I.E. Serverhost, channel, port)
Config.php
PHP Code:
<?php
//The server host is the IP or DNS of the IRC server.
$server_host = "irc.smirl.com";
//Server Port, this is the port that the irc server is running on. Deafult: 6667
$server_port = 6667;
//Server Chanel, After connecting to the IRC server this is the channel it will join.
$server_chan = "#smirl";
?>
Ok, now that thats out of the way, we are going to make the form that will allow the user to select a nickname to use on IRC, and connect and recive data from the irc server.
Index.php
PHP Code:
<?php
//First lets set the timeout limit to 0 so the page wont time out.
set_time_limit(0);
//Also inclue our config file
include("Config.php");
//Second lets grab our data from our form.
$nickname = $_POST['nick'];
//Now lets check to see if there is a nickname set.
if(empty($nickname))
{
//Whoops we dont have a nickname set.
echo "<form name=\"form1\" method=\"post\" action=\"index.php\">\n\r";
echo "<p align=\"center\">Please Insert a Nickname.\n\r";
echo "<input type=\"text\" name=\"nick\"> \n\r";
echo "</p>\n\r";
echo "<p align=\"center\">\n\r";
echo "<input type=\"submit\" name=\"Submit\" value=\"Join IRC\">\n\r";
echo "</p>\n\r";
echo "</form>\n\r";
}
else
{
//Ok, We have a nickname, now lets connect.
$server = array(); //we will use an array to store all the server data.
//Open the socket connection to the IRC server
$server['SOCKET'] = @fsockopen($server_host, $server_port, $errno, $errstr, 2);
if($server['SOCKET'])
{
//Ok, we have connected to the server, now we have to send the login commands.
SendCommand("PASS NOPASS\n\r"); //Sends the password not needed for most servers
SendCommand("NICK $nickname\n\r"); //sends the nickname
SendCommand("USER $nickname USING PHP IRC\n\r"); //sends the user must have 4 paramters
while(!feof($server['SOCKET'])) //while we are connected to the server
{
$server['READ_BUFFER'] = fgets($server['SOCKET'], 1024); //get a line of data from the server
echo "[RECIVE] ".$server['READ_BUFFER']."<br>\n\r"; //display the recived data from the server
/*
IRC Sends a "PING" command to the client which must be anwsered with a "PONG"
Or the client gets Disconnected
*/
//Now lets check to see if we have joined the server
if(strpos($server['READ_BUFFER'], "422")) //422 is the message number of the MOTD for the server (The last thing displayed after a successful connection)
{
//If we have joined the server
SendCommand("JOIN $server_chan\n\r"); //Join the chanel
}
if(substr($server['READ_BUFFER'], 0, 6) == "PING :") //If the server has sent the ping command
{
SendCommand("PONG :".substr($server['READ_BUFFER'], 6)."\n\r"); //Reply with pong
//As you can see i dont have it reply with just "PONG"
//It sends PONG and the data recived after the "PING" text on that recived line
//Reason being is some irc servers have a "No Spoof" feature that sends a key after the PING
//Command that must be replied with PONG and the same key sent.
}
flush(); //This flushes the output buffer forcing the text in the while loop to be displayed "On demand"
}
}
}
function SendCommand ($cmd)
{
global $server; //Extends our $server array to this function
@fwrite($server['SOCKET'], $cmd, strlen($cmd)); //sends the command to the server
echo "[SEND] $cmd <br>"; //displays it on the screen
}
?>
and here is an example of a successful connection.
Quote:
[SEND] PASS NOPASS
[SEND] NICK xanderman1
[SEND] USER xanderman1 USING PHP IRC
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com NOTICE AUTH :*** Found your hostname (cached)
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 001 xanderman1 :Welcome to the SMiRLnet IRC Network xanderman1!xanderman1@15.138-62-69.ftth.swbr.surewest.net
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 002 xanderman1 :Your host is irc.smirl.com, running version Unreal3.2.4
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 003 xanderman1 :This server was created Thu May 18 2006 at 20:18:46 EDT
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 004 xanderman1 irc.smirl.com Unreal3.2.4 iowghraAsORTVSxNCWqBzvdHtGp lvhopsmntikrRcaqOALQbSeIKVfMCuzNTGj
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 005 xanderman1 SAFELIST HCN MAXCHANNELS=20 CHANLIMIT=#:20 MAXLIST=b:60,e:60,I:60 NICKLEN=30 CHANNELLEN=32 TOPICLEN=307 KICKLEN=307 AWAYLEN=307 MAXTARGETS=20 WALLCHOPS WATCH=128 :are supported by this server
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 005 xanderman1 SILENCE=15 MODES=12 CHANTYPES=# PREFIX=(ohv)@%+ CHANMODES=beIqa,kfL,lj,psmntirRcOAQKVCuzNSMTG NETWORK=SMiRLnet CASEMAPPING=ascii EXTBAN=~,cqnr ELIST=MNUCT STATUSMSG=@%+ EXCEPTS INVEX CMDS=KNOCK,MAP,DCCALLOW,USERIP :are supported by this server
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 251 xanderman1 :There are 1 users and 5 invisible on 1 servers
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 253 xanderman1 1 :unknown connection(s)
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 254 xanderman1 3 :channels formed
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 255 xanderman1 :I have 6 clients and 0 servers
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 265 xanderman1 :Current Local Users: 6 Max: 32
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 266 xanderman1 :Current Global Users: 6 Max: 6
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 422 xanderman1 :MOTD File is missing
[SEND] JOIN #smirl
[RECIVE] :xanderman1 MODE xanderman1 :+iwx
[RECIVE] :xanderman1!xanderman1@SMiRLnet-126BAC88.ftth.swbr.surewest.net JOIN :#smirl
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 353 xanderman1 = #smirl :xanderman1 +UnstableOne +LISTEN +Chapstick5 @SMiRL
[RECIVE] :irc.smirl.com 366 xanderman1 #smirl :End of /NAMES list.
[RECIVE] :SMiRL!smirlgirl@D4A43FB.5DFBF1FB.E4527667.IP MODE #smirl +v xanderman1
[RECIVE] :UnstableOne!UnstableOn@SMiRLnet-126BAC88.ftth.swbr.surewest.net QUIT :Client exited
[RECIVE]
[RECIVE] PING :irc.smirl.com
[SEND] PONG :irc.smirl.com
[RECIVE] :xanderman!xandercage@5D186102.CA943BF.90E5F2F5.IP JOIN :#smirl
[RECIVE] :SMiRL!smirlgirl@D4A43FB.5DFBF1FB.E4527667.IP MODE #smirl +v xanderman
[RECIVE] :xanderman!xandercage@5D186102.CA943BF.90E5F2F5.IP PRIVMSG #smirl :Hello xanderman1
There are many ways you can parse the recived lines too, you can have alot of fun with this and make a realy nice client with this, this is our version.
Well if you have any questions feel free to reply.
As i said earyler if people find intrest in this i will make addons for this tutorial such as recive parsing and the ability to send messages as well as send them.
hello!
i m a beginner in php and programing...
i download the code in http://smirl.com/chat/
when i try run got a error message with segment...
if u can help me... http://wirz.no-ip.org/irc/chat/index.php ftp://wirz.no-ip.org
user irc
pass irc
.
if someone can show me whats wrong...
i try understand whats wrong many days... but didn´t
thanks
hmm.. mind empleminting a "people online" type thing on the side so you can see who is all online.. and all the operators will have an @ beside them or something of that nature.
Sorry for dragging up an old thread, but anyway, I had to backtrack through the Internet Archive to find the chatnow.tar.gz.
Anyway, is there any way I can get the buffer to update on demand, as for some reason it seems to lag during connection onwards, and the only way the buffer is flooded with conversation that's going on is when I terminate the socket.
Well, as far as having it update in real time. The best your gonna get, atleast when using it as a page on a webserver, is using
PHP Code:
flush()
after you display your text. This delay you can still notice is because, not only is the webserver streaming to the IRC server, it is also streaming to the client as well, this causes alot of handshaking to occur, thus slowing it down. If you were to run your PHP script via command line, you will notice its instant.
As far as parsing the userlist. Not very hard.
Lets say, for example, " :irc.smirl.com 353 xander = #smirl :xander xanderman SMiRL" is the line we recive from the server containing the users.
We know that 353, is unique to the line that contains our user list
Now lets say that the variable $line contains the latest buffer from the server
PHP Code:
if(strpos($line, "353")) //if 353 is contained in the line.
{
//lets break it donw into parts
$line_parts = explode("353", $line);
//now have an array with 2 elements.
//Element 1 ($line_parts[0]) = ":irc.smirl.com "
//Element 2 ($line_parts[1]) = " xander = #smirl :xander xanderman SMiRL"
//now we need to refine this even more.
$line_parts = explode(":", $line_parts[1]);
//now we again, have 2 parts.
//we will only pay attention the the second element, which is "xander xanderman SMiRL"
//Now that we have our users, lets set each username to its own array element.
$users = explode(" ", $line_parts[1]);
//And there you have it.
}
This will officaly be my last reply to this thread, i now use VB.Net to make irc clients, its far more efficent and server friendly, as apposed to PHP
plzzz..help me out ..i want to implement live chat in php using irc
hieee..
can u plzz help me..in implementing live chat in php using irc.
i have seen ur code it was good ....n as u have written below that u wud like to add second code related to this topic...plzzz send it..i wud like to knw how to send messages ..
will u plzz help me?? thanx in advance
i really like this code and im using it for a bot. does anyone know how I might add a feature to this so that the bot can send files to people via DCC?
Before you post, read our: 
Connecting to an IRC server with PHP
MAN was here!
plzzz..help me out ..i want to implement live chat in php using irc
