irc

20.5.0 verified Fri May 01 auth: no python

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol library for Python. Provides client and server implementations. Current version: 20.5.0. Release cadence: irregular, a few times per year.

pip install irc

Common errors

error AttributeError: module 'irc' has no attribute 'client' ↓

cause Trying to import `irc.client` before installing the library or using a very old version where the module didn't exist.

fix

Ensure pip install irc succeeded and version >=20.0.0. Use from irc import client or from irc.client import ....

error TypeError: on_welcome() takes 2 positional arguments but 3 were given ↓

cause Callback signature mismatch: old code expects 2 arguments (self, event) but new API passes 3 (self, connection, event).

fix

Change method signature to def on_welcome(self, connection, event):.

Warnings

breaking In v20.0.0, the `irc.client` module was restructured. `irc.client.IRC` is now `irc.client.IRCClient`. Old imports break. ↓

fix Use `from irc.client import IRCClient` instead of `from irc.client import IRC`.

breaking In v20.0.0, `on_join`, `on_part`, etc. callbacks now receive `connection` and `event` arguments (previously different). ↓

fix Update callback signatures to `def on_join(self, connection, event):`.

gotcha The library uses Python's `select` module by default, which does not support Windows' socket behaviour. On Windows, it may hang or fail. ↓

fix Use an asynchronous event loop (e.g., `irc.client.aio`) or set `irc.client.ServerConnection.buffer_class = irc.buffer.LenientDecodingLineBuffer`.

Imports

IRCClient
wrong
```
from irc import IRCClient
```
correct
```
from irc.client import IRCClient
```
IRCClient is in the client module, not top-level.

ServerConnection

wrong

from irc import ServerConnection

correct

from irc.client import ServerConnection

ServerConnection is in the client module.

Quickstart

Basic IRC bot connecting to Libera.Chat and printing messages.

import irc.client
import os

server = 'irc.libera.chat'
port = 6667
nick = 'MyBot'

class MyClient(irc.client.SimpleIRCClient):
    def on_welcome(self, connection, event):
        connection.join('#testchannel')

    def on_pubmsg(self, connection, event):
        print(f"{event.source.nick}: {event.arguments[0]}")

client = MyClient()
client.connect(server, port, nick)
client.start()