7. Advanced Usage

7.1 Connecting to an IRC Server

The easiest way to connect to an IRC server is to call M-x erc. If you want to assign this function to a keystroke, the following will help you figure out its parameters.

Function: erc

Select connection parameters and run ERC. Non-interactively, it takes the following keyword arguments.

• server
• port
• nick
• password
• full-name

That is, if called with the following arguments, server and full-name will be set to those values, whereas erc-compute-port, erc-compute-nick and erc-compute-full-name will be invoked for the values of the other parameters.

(erc :server "irc.freenode.net" :full-name "Harry S Truman")

Server

Function: erc-compute-server &optional server

Return an IRC server name.

This tries a number of increasingly more default methods until a non-nil value is found.

• server (the argument passed to this function)
• The erc-server option
• The value of the IRCSERVER environment variable
• The erc-default-server variable

User Option: erc-server nil

IRC server to use if one is not provided.

Port

Function: erc-compute-port &optional port

Return a port for an IRC server.

This tries a number of increasingly more default methods until a non-nil value is found.

• port (the argument passed to this function)
• The erc-port option
• The erc-default-port variable

User Option: erc-port

IRC port to use if not specified.

This can be either a string or a number.

Nick

Function: erc-compute-nick &optional nick

Return user's IRC nick.

This tries a number of increasingly more default methods until a non-nil value is found.

• nick (the argument passed to this function)
• The erc-nick option
• The value of the IRCNICK environment variable
• The result from the user-login-name function

User Option: erc-nick

Nickname to use if one is not provided.

This can be either a string, or a list of strings. In the latter case, if the first nick in the list is already in use, other nicks are tried in the list order.

User Option: erc-nick-uniquifier

The string to append to the nick if it is already in use.

User Option: erc-try-new-nick-p

If the nickname you chose isn't available, and this option is non-nil, ERC should automatically attempt to connect with another nickname.

You can manually set another nickname with the /NICK command.

Full name

Function: erc-compute-full-name &optional full-name

Return user's full name.

This tries a number of increasingly more default methods until a non-nil value is found.

• full-name (the argument passed to this function)
• The erc-user-full-name option
• The value of the IRCNAME environment variable
• The result from the user-full-name function

User Option: erc-user-full-name

User full name.

This can be either a string or a function to call.

7.2 Sample Configuration

Here is an example of configuration settings for ERC. This can go into your Emacs configuration file. Everything after the (require 'erc) command can optionally go into `~/.emacs.d/.ercrc.el'.

;;; Sample ERC configuration

;; Add the ERC directory to load path -- you don't need this if you are
;; using the version of ERC that comes with Emacs
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp/erc")

;; Load ERC
(require 'erc)

;; Load authentication info from an external source.  Put sensitive
;; passwords and the like in here.
(load "~/.emacs.d/.erc-auth")

;; This is an example of how to make a new command.  Type "/uptime" to
;; use it.
(defun erc-cmd-UPTIME (&rest ignore)
  "Display the uptime of the system, as well as some load-related
stuff, to the current ERC buffer."
  (let ((uname-output
         (replace-regexp-in-string
          ", load average: " "] {Load average} ["
          ;; Collapse spaces, remove
          (replace-regexp-in-string
           " +" " "
           ;; Remove beginning and trailing whitespace
           (replace-regexp-in-string
            "^ +\\|[ \n]+$" ""
            (shell-command-to-string "uptime"))))))
    (erc-send-message
     (concat "{Uptime} [" uname-output "]"))))

;; This causes ERC to connect to the Freenode network upon hitting
;; C-c e f.  Replace MYNICK with your IRC nick.
(global-set-key "\C-cef" (lambda () (interactive)
                           (erc :server "irc.freenode.net" :port "6667"
                                :nick "MYNICK")))

;; This causes ERC to connect to the IRC server on your own machine (if
;; you have one) upon hitting C-c e b.  Replace MYNICK with your IRC
;; nick.  Often, people like to run bitlbee (http://bitlbee.org/) as an
;; AIM/Jabber/MSN to IRC gateway, so that they can use ERC to chat with
;; people on those networks.
(global-set-key "\C-ceb" (lambda () (interactive)
                           (erc :server "localhost" :port "6667"
                                :nick "MYNICK")))

;; Make C-c RET (or C-c C-RET) send messages instead of RET. This has
;; been commented out to avoid confusing new users.
;; (define-key erc-mode-map (kbd "RET") nil)
;; (define-key erc-mode-map (kbd "C-c RET") 'erc-send-current-line)
;; (define-key erc-mode-map (kbd "C-c C-RET") 'erc-send-current-line)

;;; Options

;; Join the #emacs and #erc channels whenever connecting to Freenode.
(setq erc-autojoin-channels-alist '(("freenode.net" "#emacs" "#erc")))

;; Interpret mIRC-style color commands in IRC chats
(setq erc-interpret-mirc-color t)

;; The following are commented out by default, but users of other
;; non-Emacs IRC clients might find them useful.
;; Kill buffers for channels after /part
;; (setq erc-kill-buffer-on-part t)
;; Kill buffers for private queries after quitting the server
;; (setq erc-kill-queries-on-quit t)
;; Kill buffers for server messages after quitting the server
;; (setq erc-kill-server-buffer-on-quit t)

7.3 Options

This section has not yet been written. For now, the easiest way to check out the available options for ERC is to do M-x customize-group erc RET.

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