POE::Component::IRC::Cookbook::BasicBot(3)

NAME
POE::Component::IRC::Cookbook::BasicBot - A basic IRC bot

SYNOPSIS
This a very basic bot that connects to IRC, joins a few channels, and announces its arrival.

DESCRIPTION
We start off quite simply:

 #!/usr/bin/env perl

 use strict;
 use warnings;

Then we "use" the stuff we're going to...well, use. "::State" is a subclass which keeps track of state information related to channels and nicknames. It is needed by the "AutoJoin" plugin which takes care of keeping us on our channels.

 use POE;
 use POE::Component::IRC::State;
 use POE::Component::IRC::Plugin::AutoJoin;

Next up is our POE session. We create it and list our event handlers. We then start the POE kernel.

 POE::Session->create(
     package_states => [
         main => [ qw(_start irc_join) ]
     ]
 );

 $poe_kernel->run();

Now all we have to do is write the handlers for "_start" and "irc_join". In "_start", we create our IRC component, add an "AutoJoin" plugin, register for the "irc_join" event, and connect to the IRC server.

 sub _start {
     my $irc = POE::Component::IRC::State->spawn(
         Nick   => 'basic_bot',
         Server => 'irc.freenode.net',
     );

     $irc->plugin_add('AutoJoin', POE::Component::IRC::Plugin::AutoJoin->new(
        Channels => [ '#test_channel1', '#test_channel2' ]
     ));

     $irc->yield(register => 'join');
     $irc->yield('connect');
 }

Now comes our "irc_join" event handler. We send a message to the channel once we've joined it.

 sub irc_join {
     my $nick = (split /!/, $_[ARG0])[0];
     my $channel = $_[ARG1];
     my $irc = $_[SENDER]->get_heap();

     # only send the message if we were the one joining
     if ($nick eq $irc->nick_name()) {
         $irc->yield(privmsg => $channel, 'Hi everybody!');
     }
 }

That's it!

AUTHOR
Hinrik Örn Sigurðsson, hinrik.sig@gmail.com