country

Synopsis

/load country
/country [<flag>] <nickname|country-name|code|pattern>
/lcountry <country-name-or-pattern>
/lcode <code-or-pattern>

Description

The country script looks up country names and codes in a table bundled with the script. It can search in either direction and can use a nickname's reported hostname suffix as the lookup term. This is a script alias, not a C country-detection facility or a live registry query.

With no argument, /country displays brief usage instructions. A direct lookup prints a Looking for ... heading, one line for every matching table entry, and DONE !. Each result has the form COUNTRY NAME is CODE, with both fields displayed in uppercase. No match produces the heading and completion line without a separate not-found error. There is no function return value defined for these command aliases.

Input and flags

Ordinarily the script treats the first input word as a nickname and invokes userhost. If that lookup reports an unknown user, it searches the original input against the table. Otherwise it searches the final dot-separated component of the reported hostname. For example, a hostname ending in .ca supplies ca to the table lookup. Cached userhost information may satisfy the lookup without a server request.

The nickname path requires a registered server connection. Without one, the underlying userhost request returns without its callback, so there may be no table output. It also uses wait to wait for a server round trip while continuing to process events; a delayed server can delay completion. The available hostname depends on server replies, caching, and host cloaking. Its suffix does not establish a person's physical location.

Flag	Current behavior
`-c`	Skip nickname lookup and search the table directly.
`-f`	Same direct lookup.
`-i`	Same direct lookup; it does not restrict matches to the code column.
`-n`	Discard this flag and process the remaining input normally.
Any other leading `-...` word	Skip nickname lookup, just like `-c`.

lcountry is an alias for country -c; lcode is an alias for country -i. Both search names and codes. There is no length-based distinction between country names and codes, and the flags no longer select separate lookup algorithms.

Patterns and limitations

Direct lookup compares the supplied pattern against both fields of every table entry using EPIC wildcard matching. Use * for a variable-length match and ? for a single character. The pattern covers the whole field, so use surrounding * when searching for part of a country name. Matching is case-insensitive; uppercase is only the output formatting.

Use a direct flag for patterns and country names, especially names containing spaces. The script also bypasses nickname lookup for an initial argument containing a literal *, but explicit flags make the intended path clear. Direct lookup does not require a server connection.

A raw email address or hostname is not parsed by the table lookup. For a known hostname, explicitly search its suffix, such as /lcode ca. Numeric IP address components are not converted into a country, and this script performs no DNS resolution or IP geolocation.

The bundled table contains historical names, obsolete entries, misspellings, multiple names for some codes, and generic domain suffixes such as com, net, and org. Results are the stored labels, not a guarantee of a current official name or ISO assignment. Multiple result lines can therefore refer to the same code. Loading the script rebuilds its country.info table from the bundled data; it does not download updates.

Examples

/load country
/country -c Canada
/lcode ca
/country -f *United*
/country Alice

The first two lookups both print CANADA is CA. The wildcard example lists matching names from the table. The nickname example tries Alice's reported hostname suffix, then falls back to looking up Alice only if the userhost callback reports an unknown user.

Other notes

Country information was compiled by Daniel Cedras. The software was written and substantially revised by Jeremy Nelson.

Source references

script/country: aliases, callback, direct wildcard search, output, and static table.
source/who.c: userhostbase connection requirements, cache use, and userhost_cmd_returned callback fields.
source/commands.c and source/server.c: wait and server round-trip waiting.
source/functions.c and source/reg.c: match and wildcard matching.