# Supybot developer interfaces

## Available interfaces

These are the interfaces for some of the objects you'll deal with if you code for Supybot.

### `ircmsgs.IrcMsg`

This is the object that represents an IRC message. It has several methods and attributes. The most important thing about this class, however, is that it is hashable, and thus cannot be modified. Do not change any attributes; any code that modifies an IRC message is broken and should not exist.

### Interesting methods

__init__

- One of the more complex initializers in a class. It can be used in three different ways:

  1. It can be given a string, as one received from the server, which it will then parse into its separate components and instantiate the class with those components as attributes.

  2. It can be given a command, some (optional) arguments, and a (optional) prefix, and will instantiate the class with those components as attributes.

  3. It can be given, in addition to any of the above arguments, a `msg` keyword argument that will use the attributes of msg as defaults. This exists to make it easier to copy messages, since the class is immutable.

__str__

- This returns the message in a string form suitable for sending to a server.

__repr__

- This returns the message in a form suitable for `eval()`, assuming the name `IrcMsg` is in your namespace and is bound to this class.

The following attributes are the meat of this class. These are generally what you'll be looking at with `IrcMsg`s.

### Interesting attributes

command

- This is the command of the `IrcMsg` – `PRIVMSG`, `NOTICE`, `WHOIS`, etc.

args

- This is a tuple of the arguments to the `IrcMsg`. Some messages have arguments, some don't, depending on what command they are. You are, of course, always assured that `args` exists and is a tuple, though it might be empty.

prefix

- This is the hostmask of the person/server the message is from. In general, you won't be setting this on your outgoing messages, but incoming messages will always have one. This is the whole hostmask; if the message was received from a server, it'll be the server's hostmask; if the message was received from a user, it'll be the whole user hostmask. In that case, however, it's also parsed out into the `nick`/`user`/`host` attributes, which are probably more useful to check for many purposes.

nick

- If the message was sent by a user, this will be the nick of the user. If it was sent by a server, this will be the server's name (something like `calvino.freenode.net` or similar).

user

- If the message was sent by a user, this will be the user string of the user – what they put into their IRC client for their "full name." If it was sent by a server, it'll be the server's name, again.

host

- If the message was sent by a user, this will be the host portion of their hostmask. If it was sent by a server, it'll be the server's name (yet again :))

### `irclib.Irc`

This is the object to handle everything about IRC except the actual connection to the server itself. (NOTE that the object actually received by commands in subclasses of `callbacks.Privmsg` is an `IrcObjectProxy`, which is described later. It augments the following interface with several methods of its own to help plugin authors.)

### Interesting methods

queueMsg

- Queues a message for sending to the server. The queue is generally FIFO, but it does prioritize messages based on their command.

sendMsg

- Queues a message for sending to the server prior to any messages in the normal queue. This is exactly a FIFO queue, no reordering is done at all.

feedMsg

- Feeds the `Irc` object a message for it handle appropriately, as well as passing it on to callbacks.

takeMsg

- If the `Irc` object has a message it's ready to send to the server, this will return it. Otherwise, it will return `None`.

addCallback

- Takes a callback to add to the list of callbacks in the `Irc` object. See the interface for `IrcCallback` for more information.

getCallback

- Gets a callback by name, if it is in the `Irc` object's list of callbacks. If it it isn't, returns `None`.

removeCallback

- Removes a callback by name. Returns a list of the callbacks removed (since it is technically possible to have multiple callbacks with the same name. This list may be empty.

__init__

- Requires a `nick`. Optional arguments include `user` and `ident`, which default to the nick given, `password`, which defaults to the empty password, and `callbacks`, a list of callbacks (which defaults to nothing, an empty list).

reset

- Resets the `Irc` object to its original state, as well as sends a `reset()` to every callbacks.

die

- Kills the IRC object and all its callbacks.

### Interesting attributes

nick

- The current nick of the bot.

prefix

- The current prefix of the bot.

server

- The current server the bot is connected to.

network

- The current network name the bot is connected to.

afterConnect

- `False` until the bot has received a command sent after the connection is finished – 376, 377, or 422.

state

- An `IrcState` object for this particular connection. See the interface for the `IrcState` object for more information.

### `irclib.IrcCallback`

### Interesting Methods

name

- Returns the name of the callback. The default implementation simply returns the name of the class.

__call__

- Called by the `Irc` object with itself and the message whenever a message is fed to the `Irc` object. Nothing is done with the return value.

inFilter

- Called by the `Irc` object with itself and the message whenever a message is fed to the `Irc` object. The return value should be an `IrcMsg` object to be passed to the next callback in the `Irc`'s list of callbacks. If `None` is returned, all processing stops. This gives callbacks an oppurtunity to "filter" incoming messages before general callbacks are given them.

outFilter

- Basically equivalent to `inFilter`, except instead of being called on messages as they enter the `Irc` object, it's called on messages as they leave the `Irc` object.

die

- Called when the parent `Irc` is told to die. This gives callbacks an oppurtunity to close open files, network connections, or databases before they're deleted.

reset

- Called when the parent `Irc` is told to reset (which is generally when reconnecting to the server). Most callbacks don't need to define this.

### Interesting attributes

priority

- Determines the priority of the callback in the `Irc` object's list of callbacks. Defaults to `99`; the valid range includes `0` through `sys.maxint-1` (don't use `sys.maxint` itself, that's reserved for the `Misc` plugin). The lower the number, the higher the priority. High priority callbacks are called earlier in the `inFilter` cycle, earlier in the `__call__` cycle, and later in the `outFilter` cycle – basically, they're given the first chances on the way in and the last chances on the way out.

### `callbacks.IrcObjectProxy`

`IrcObjectProxy` is a proxy for an `irclib.Irc` instance that serves to provide a much fuller interface for handling replies and errors as well as to handle the nesting of commands. This is what you'll be dealing with almost all the time when writing commands; when writing `doCommand` methods (the kind you read about in the interface description of `irclib.IrcCallback`) you'll be dealing with plain old `irclib.Irc` objects.

### Interesting methods

reply

- Called to reply to the current message with a string that is to be the reply. Uses the `queueMsg` command discussed in the `irclib.Irc` section.

replySuccess

replyError

- These reply with the configured responses for success and generic error, respectively. If an additional argument is given, it's (intelligently) appended to the generic message to be more specific.

error

- Called to send an error reply to the current message; not only does the response indicate an error, but commands that error out break the nested-command chain, which is generally useful for not confusing the user :)

errorNoCapability

- Like `error`, except it accepts the capability that's missing and integrates it into the configured error message for such things. Also accepts an additional string for a more descriptive message, if that's what you want.

errorPossibleBug

errorNotRegistered

errorNoUser

errorRequiresPrivacy

- These methods reply with the appropriate configured error message for the conditions in their names; they all take an additional arguments to be more specific about the conditions they indicate, but this argument is very rarely necessary.

getRealIrc

- Returns the actual `Irc` object being proxied for.