EPIC Enhanced Programmable IRC-II Client

EPIC6-0.0.1

News 10/31/2026 [3108] -- TLS connections require TLS 1.2 or newer

EPIC now uses TLS 1.2 as the minimum version for server connections. You can set ssl_min_version to 1.3 to require TLS 1.3; if the server cannot use that version, the connection fails. The setting applies to new connections.

News 10/31/2026 [3108] -- New TLS certificate details in $serverctl()

$serverctl(get <refnum> ssl_cert_sha256) returns the connected server's SHA-256 certificate fingerprint. Use this instead of the legacy SHA-1 ssl_cert_hash when pinning a certificate. $serverctl(get <refnum> ssl_most_serious_error_str) returns a readable description of the most serious certificate verification error.

News 10/31/2026 [3107] -- Fix channel syncing after a ZNC reconnect

When a network behind ZNC reconnects while EPIC6 remains connected to ZNC, the client could keep stale channel state. Channels might then appear in the wrong window or fail to trigger expected hooks and styling. EPIC6 now replaces the old channel state when it receives a new JOIN, allowing channel syncing to recover.

News 08/30/2026 -- Wow, I haven't documented things for a long time

It's been a long time since i updated this file. All of the things below dated 8/30/2026 happened between 12/17/2025 and 8/30/2026

News 08/30/2026 -- New built-in function $sortby(func-name word-list)

You can now sort a word-list using your own alias rather than

$sortby(stricmp word-list)

is the same as

$sort(word-list)

See the 'nicklist' script for how this can be used in a new way.

If you didn't want to wrap your sorter into an alias (but you really should), you can pass a lambda function, which is a bit wonky:

Here's how $sort() might look with a lambda (inline) function:

$sortby({(one dword, two dword) { \
    @ function_return = one <=> two \
}} word-list)

Note how the first "argument" is a code block wrapped in {}s, but the body of that code block is an arglist block statement

You have to do it this way because $sortby() looks for a { to differentiate it from an ordinary function name.

News 08/30/2026 -- New built in function $stricmp("word1" "word2")

The $stricmp() function takes two qwords, that means they should always be surrounded by double quotes. The surrounding double quotes get stripped out. This function does the same thing as the sort operator.

News 08/30/2026 -- New built in math operator, "sort operator" <=>

The "sort operator", <=> is found in many languages, It returns negative, zero, or positive, depending on how the two operands sort out

@ var1 = [one]
@ var2 = [two]
@ var1 <=> var2

is negative, because "one" comes before "two"

This is strictly a string comparison.

The comparisons are strictly case insensitive, because ircII is a fully case insensitive language, and I'm not going to make this an exception. You can use $encode() to do that

@ var1 = [one]
@ var2 = [TWO]

normally TWO comes before one, on a strictly byte-by-byte basis. You can do:

@ encode($var1) <=> encode($var2)

to sort them case sensitively

News 08/30/2026 -- Changing the "swap operator" from <=> to =>

The "swap operator> which as far as i can tell nobody ever used, allows you to switch the rvals between two lvals. You can still do it, but the operator has changed

@ var1 = [one]
@ var2 = [two]
@ var1 => var2

then

$var1 is "two" and $var2 is "one"

News 08/30/2026 -- New scripts, /load nicklist and /load nickcolor.irc

The /load nicklist script puts the nicks of everyone on a channel at the top of that channel's window. Neat!

The /load nickcolor.irc converts a nickname to a color, to help you differentiate nicks. You can use it for more than just nick lists, of course!

News 08/30/2026 -- Hex constants are supported in integer contexts

You can now do things like

@ varname = 0x80

News 08/30/2026 -- Officially, only Python 3.8 or newer is supported

Although you might get EPIC to build against python 3.7 or earlier, that is not supported and might not work and I won't help you try.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset /SET SUPPRESS_FROM_REMOTE_SERVER

When you get a numeric from a remote server, ircII has traditionally appended "(from irc.server.com"). I don't know why i ever added this feature instead of scripting it away.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset $uhc()

The $uhc() function was superceded by $mask() like 30 years ago.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset /SET ALLOW_C1_CHARS

This /SET served no purpose once we introduced UTF-8 support 10 years ago

News 08/30/2026 -- New env variable, IRCCHANNEL

You can set the IRCCHANNEL environment variable to set a channel to join after connecting to your first server. It does the same thing as the -c command line option.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset password prompting

Traditionally if you connected to a server that required a password or you did /OPER, but didn't supply a password, ircII would prompt you for one. These features existed because on multi-user systems, people might shoulder-surf you at the lab and see your password as you typed it at the input line. That's not relevant any longer.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset /MESG

The /MESG command existed to help you defend against talk bombs. Neither talk bombs nor /MESG are relevant any longer.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset of termcap support

Originally ircII supported only termcap. EPIC supports both termcap and terminfo through libncurses. Now it supports only terminfo (through ncurses)

News 08/30/2026 -- CPPCheck and Coverity finds a bunch of bugs

During 2026 we used several static analyzers to find and fix bugs.

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset /BOTMODE -- just use -b

The /BOTMODE command which allowed you to take a foreground epic process and send it to the background has been sunset. Switching between attached and detached after boot is no longer supported. Use the -b command line argument

News 08/30/2026 -- Sunset /bind <X> STOP_IRC

The STOP_IRC keybinding, which heralds back to the day before we all used gnu screen/tmux, and which only causes pain and misery, has been retired.

News 08/30/2026 -- Removal of sunset /on's

The features using these /on's were previously sunset.

News 12/17/2025 -- New configure flag, "--with-installtype"

Traditionally epic installs its binary as epic6-<version> and a symlink from "epic6" to "epic6-<version>".

It does this because that's what ircII has always done, and that was inherited from gnu screen's behavior

For those who would prefer to do without this quirk, you can now do

./configure --with-installtype=prod

and then the epic binary will be installed as "epic6" without the version suffix and without the symlink.

News 08/18/2025 -- Level-sets represented as a single word now

From the very beginnings of ircII, level sets ("MSGS PUBLICS JOINS OTHER") have been represented as a space-seperated list of levels. This makes it hard to capture the level as a word and makes it hard to pass to /window notify_level which expects only one word and doesn't support double quoted words.

Starting from now, level sets will be comma-seperated instead of space seperated, to make them easier to work with in scripts, without being harder to read

Historically:

*** Window level is MSG PUBLICS JOINS OTHER

Going Forward:

*** Window level is MSG,PUBLICS,JOINS,OTHER

News 06/05/2025 -- $regcomp() and friends now use base85.

This will probably not affect you -- but previously, $regcomp() and friends who work with compiled regexes, had "encoded" the compiled regex. They now use base85. If you notice anything weird with regexes, this may be why. Please report it.

News 06/01/2025 -- New xform, base85 -- $xform(+B85 ...)

You can now transform strings to and from base85 with the "B85" transform with $xform(). Technically these are "ascii85" strings, because they have the <~...~> wrapper and they use the ascii85 alphabet. I have in mind to use these for encrypted strings in the future. I haven't tested this extensively for edge cases.

Example:

$xform(+B85 this is a string)

would return

<~FD,B0+DGm>@3BZ'F*%~>

and

$xform(-B85 <~FD,B0+DGm>@3BZ'F*%~>)

would return

this is a string

News 05/27/2025 -- Clarification on SASL types and configuration

In a previous version of this file, I had used informal names of SASL types, like "nistp256". However, it seems better to compel the user to use the same spellings as the server, because otherwise we're just trying to be clever and that confuses people. When you register a sasl rule, it must be spelled like the server spells it, and it must be in the same case as the server has it.

/load sasl
sasl *.network.org EXTERNAL /path/to/cert.pem
sasl *.network.org ECDSA-NIST256P-CHALLENGE <nick> /path/to/eckey.pem
sasl *.network.org SCRAM-SHA-512 <nick> <password>
sasl *.network.org PLAIN <nick> <password>

If SASL isn't working for you, make sure you have it spelled and cased the same way as the server. The sasl script does not support trying multiple rules per server -- it will use the "best" one, in the above order.

News 05/26/2025 -- SASL SCRAM-SHA-512 support

The /load sasl script now supports SCRAM-SHA-512. I can support other kinds of SHAs, contact me for details. I only tested this with libera.

Just like with other sasl types, add a line to your ~/.epicrc

sasl *.network.org scram-sha-512 <nick> <password>

There is a new $scrambox() function, but it's only intended to be used by the /load sasl script for the stuff that has to be done in C.

News 05/26/2025 -- New /ON, /ON CONTEXT, new command /SHH

This one takes more explanation than normal. See the file 'doc/set_context'.

The /ON CONTEXT event is thrown each time a new output context is set up. This happens a lot more than you might think! The only officially supported operation is /SHH, which will set the "suppress display" flag for the lifetime of the context. It's expected this will create a foundation for a new /IGNORE

Using /SHH outside of an /on context has unspecified behavior.

News 05/16/2025 -- SASL handling, /load sasl

There is now a unified sasl handling script that will do all the sasl things in one place.

[see examples above]

It's kind of assumed you know what to do with this. If you don't, then it probably won't affect you. I may write more on this in the future. There are now no external dependencies, and no /SETs to configure.

This script is sort of opinionated, and will try to steer you to success.

News 05/16/2025 -- CAP handling, /ON CAP

The client will now automatically request CAPs when you connect to a server. If your script is trying to do this manually, you will need to migrate it to the new way.

/ON CAP "<server> LS <CAP> <VALUE>" {...}

When the server responds with its CAPs, the client will offer them to you, one at a time, with /on cap. Even though most CAPs do not have <value>, there will always be a <value>, even if it's an empty string -- so watch out for that trailing space!

/quote CAP req $2

If you wanted to turn on a cap (in an /on cap) you could do it like this.

/ON CAP "<server> ACK <CAP>" {...}

The server has agreed to turn on <CAP> for you. If there is anything you need to do this would be a great time

/ON CAP "<server> NACK <CAP>" {...}

The server has rejected your attempt to turn on <CAP>. I do not know why this would ever happen, but just in case...

After the client has offered very CAP via /ON CAP, it will send a CAP END to continue registration. If for whatever reason you need CAP END to be delayed, you may set a "cap hold"

@serverctl(SET $0 CAP_HOLD 1)

The CAP END will not be sent until you release the hold

@serverctl(SET $0 CAP_HOLD 0)

---WARNING--- You can jam the client by setting a hold and not releasing it later. I recommend doing something like:

timer 15 {@serverctl(SET $servernum() CAP HOLD 0)}

which will unjam-it as a safety valve. There is no harm in releasing a hold if it's not being held.

News 05/16/2025 -- $serverctl PORT and CERT

These are values that are usually set in the server description, but now you can get/set them via $serverctl() as well

$serverctl(GET x PORT)
@serverctl(SET x PORT y)
$serverctl(GET x CERT)
@serverctl(SET x CERT y)

News 05/12/2025 -- New function $ecdsatool()

This is based on/forked from the "ecdsatool" and libecdsa projects.

$ecdsatool(keygen file.pem)

Create a new keypair and save it to "file.pem". The file will be created with permissions 0400. If for any reason it can't be created securely, it won't be created at all. The return value is the base64 encoded public key

$ecdsatool(pubkey file.pem)

Output the public key for 'file.pem'

The file must have permissions 0400. If it has insecure permissions, it won't be loaded. The return value is the base64 encoded public key

$ecdsatool(sign file.pem base64-challenge)

Sign the <base64-challenge> with the private key in file.pem. The file must have permissions 0400. If it has insecure permissions, it won't be used. The return value is the base64 encoded signed challenge

Maybe in the future we will support 'verify', but I need to find a use case for that first.

News 05/12/2025 -- Improvements to vhost handling

Vhost handling used to be fully blocking. Now it blocks only when

  1. You are using a hostname, not an IP address, and
  2. It is the first time you're using that vhost.

After you use a vhost, it is cached, and doesn't block again. It will never block if you use an IP address.

News 04/30/2025 -- Unix Domain Sockets support sunset

ircII has traditionally supported unix domain sockets to connect to servers, as in /server /tmp/.ircd/6667. I bet you didn't even know that. I bet I was the only one who ever even used that.

News 04/30/2025 -- ^S is no longer bound to TOGGLE_STOP_SCREEN by default

TOGGLE_STOP_SCREEN toggles "hold mode" which most people do not want to use anyways. It's one of those things that everyone turns off, so why not just make it opt-in instead of opt-out?

News 04/10/2025 -- $json_implode() now defaults to "compact:true"

The $json_implode() function takes an assign tree root and converts everything underneath it into a json doc. Previously, the default was "compact:false" which gave you a multi-string line. That's wonderful for /echo but kind of stinks if you want to write it to a file. The default is now to return it in one line -- suitable for /msg'ing or writing or whatever.

You can still use kwargs to turn compact:false if you want.

/echo $json_implode({"root":"q", "compact":false})

News 04/10/2025 -- New server state, POLICY

There is a new server state POLICY between "RECONNECT" and "DNS". Just for completeness, here are the states in order

  1. CREATED
  2. RECONNECT
  3. POLICY
  4. DNS
  5. CONNECTING
  6. SSL_CONNECTING
  7. REGISTERING
  8. SYNCING
  9. ACTIVE
  10. EOF
  11. ERROR
  12. CLOSING
  13. CLOSED
  14. DELETED

These states reflect the progress of a connection to the server from the moment it is born through a connection until it is closed

The POLICY state is where you would want to modify a server's description information after the user asks to connect to it but before anything happens. This could be useful for things like changing the hostname, or changing the port or IRC-SSL things, or supplying a password, you know, I haven't decided what-all yet.

News 03/08/2025 -- A note about EPIC6

I dislike software that seems to grow new features without any sense of purpose; and the bloat makes it difficult to do the core things you need to do. One cause of this problem is cognitive overload. The more features software has, the harder it is to keep everything focused.

For each new generation of EPIC, features get sunset whose utility served us well 30 years ago, but are not so useful now. By removing such features, it is possible to add new features without things getting "bloated"

In EPIC6, the following features have been removed and are not expected to return. If you strongly disagree with the retirement of these features, please contact us and we can talk about it!

Also, some features were hardcoded (written in C) but are now implemented as a script:

Some features were hardcoded but are coming back in the future

Because of these removals, EPIC6 has already sprouted these exciting new features!

Even more things are coming down the pipeline!

News 02/17/2025 [3018] -- Mouse support (click-to-focus, scrolling)

If you /SET MOUSE ON and if your terminal emulator cooperates, EPIC will support:

  1. Clicking on a window will switch to that window
  2. Using the scrollwheel will scroll the current input window

When mouse support is turned on, other things you do with your mouse -- like selecting text -- will probably not work. Some emulators will let you do that if you're holding the shift key. I haven't tested this at all with multiple screens.

News 12/12/2024 [3008] -- New function $token(<lval> <string>)

By special request of fusion!

Usage:

$token(<lval> <string>)

<lval> refers to a variable name that has some value in it.

The value in $<lval> is divided into three parts:

  1. The part before <string>
  2. The part that is exactly <string>
  3. The part that comes after <string>

When <string> is found in $<lval>:

When <string> is not found in $<lval>

In all cases, spaces are ordinary characters.

News 08/26/2024 -- EPIC6 forked from EPIC5

A new journey awaits!