Let's apply our knowledge to something useful – a Python-powered IRC bot that performs basic mathematical functions. Let's make the bot perform arithmetic calculations and a few trigonometric functions: sine, cosine and tangent.

We will first create a file to perform the calculations for us. Create a file named ircMath.py and insert the following code.

import math

def arithmatic ( args ):

   args [ 0 ] = args [ 0 ].replace ( '\r\n', '' )
   for letter in 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz':
      args [ 0 ] = args [ 0 ].replace ( letter, '' )
   solution = str ( eval ( args [ 0 ], { '__builtins__' : {} } ) )
   return solution

def sine ( args ):

   solution = str ( math.sin ( float ( args [ 0 ] ) * ( 2 * math.pi ) / 360 ) )
   return solution

def cosine ( args ):

   solution = str ( math.cos ( float ( args [ 0 ] ) * ( 2 * math.pi ) / 360 ) )
   return solution

def tangent ( args ):

   solution = str ( math.tan ( float ( args [ 0 ] ) * ( 2 * math.pi ) / 360 ) )
   return solution

The guts of ircMath.py aren't too important, and the code should be pretty straightforward, so I won't get into detail.

We will now create the bot. Its code will be a modified version of the last section's script. We will search the incoming message for the string "%PyIRC" to discriminate between messages we do and do not need. We will then split up the message into a function and arguments. Finally, we will call the appropriate function.

import ircMath
import socket

network = 'irc.insert.a.network.here'
port = 6667
irc = socket.socket ( socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM )
irc.connect ( ( network, port ) )
irc.recv ( 4096 )
irc.send ( 'NICK PyIRC\r\n' )
irc.send ( 'USER PyIRC PyIRC PyIRC :Python IRC\r\n' )
irc.send ( 'JOIN #pyirc\r\n' )
irc.send ( 'PRIVMSG #pyirc :Hello.\r\n' )
while True:
   data = irc.recv ( 4096 )
   if data.find ( 'PING' ) != -1:
      irc.send ( 'PONG ' + data.split() [ 1 ] + '\r\n' )
   elif data.find ( 'PRIVMSG' ) != -1:
      message = ':'.join ( data.split ( ':' ) [ 2: ] )
      if message.lower().find ( '%pyirc' ) == 0:
         nick = data.split ( '!' ) [ 0 ].replace ( ':', '' )
         destination = ''.join ( data.split ( ':' ) [ :2 ] ).split ( ' ' ) [ -2 ]
         function = message.split ( ' ' ) [ 1 ]
         if function == 'calc':
            try:
               args = message.split ( ' ' ) [ 2: ]
               solution = ircMath.arithmatic ( args )
               irc.send ( 'PRIVMSG ' +  destination + ' :' + nick + ': ' + solution + '\r\n' )
            except:
               pass
         if function == 'sin':
            try:
               args = message.split ( ' ' ) [ 2: ]
               solution = ircMath.sine ( args )
               irc.send ( 'PRIVMSG ' +  destination + ' :' + nick + ': ' + solution + '\r\n' )
            except:
               pass
         if function == 'cos':
            try:
               args = message.split ( ' ' ) [ 2: ]
               solution = ircMath.cosine ( args )
               irc.send ( 'PRIVMSG ' +  destination + ' :' + nick + ': ' + solution + '\r\n' )
            except:
               pass
         if function == 'tan':
            try:
               args = message.split ( ' ' ) [ 2: ]
               solution = ircMath.tangent ( args )
               irc.send ( 'PRIVMSG ' +  destination + ' :' + nick + ': ' + solution + '\r\n' )
            except:
               pass

Start up the script and enter the specified channel on the specified network. Try saying these lines:

%PyIRC calc 2+2
%PyIRC calc 8+10
%PyIRC sin 30
%PyIRC cos 45
%PyIRC tan 27

Our bot should give us the answer to each of the problems. Pretty neat, huh?

Conclusion

You should now know the basics of Python and IRC connectivity. Try to expand on the examples provided in this article to create your own unique scripts. If you would like to learn more about the IRC protocol, the protocol is documented here:

http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/rfc