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======
pmxbot
======

pmxbot is an IRC bot written in python. Originally built for internal use,
it's been sanitized and set free upon the world. You can find out  more details
on the website, http://bitbucket.org/yougov/pmxbot, and especially the wiki
https://bitbucket.org/yougov/pmxbot/wiki/Home


Commands
========
pmxbot listens to commands prefixed by a '!'
If it's a command it knows it will reply, take an action, etc. 
It can search the web, quote you, track karma, make decisions,
and do just about anything else you could want. It logs text in a sqlite3
database, and eventually we'll write a web interface to it.

Contains
========
pmxbot will respond to things you say if it detects words and phrases it's
been told to recognize. For example, mention sql on rails.

Requirements
============
pmxbot requires python, of course. Probably 2.5+. It also requires a few python
packages:

* python-irclib
* pyyaml
* json (standard library for 2.6+) or simplejson
* feedparser
* httplib2
* sqlite3

The web interface requires cherrypy and jinja2.

Optionally nosetests for the test suite.

Testing
=======
We have a basic nose test suite that does some functional tests with an
included TCL IRC daemon, and some basic unit tests as well. Just run them from
the pmxbot root directory with "nosetests" and it should do it all for you.
You'll need TCL and nosetests to do it though.

Configuration
=============
Configuration is based on very easy YAML files. Check out config.yaml in the
source tree for an example.

Usage
=====
Once you've setup a config file, you just need to call ``pmxbot config.yaml``
and it will join and connect. We recommend running pmxbot under djb's
daemontools to make it automatically restart if it crashes. 


Custom Features
===============

Setuptools Entry Points Plugin
------------------------------

To create a setuptools (or distribute or compatible packaging tool)
entry point plugin, package your modules using
the setuptools tradition and install it alongside pmxbot. Your package
should define an entry point in the group `pmxbot_handlers` by including
something similar to the following in the package's setup.py::

    entry_points = {
        'pmxbot_handlers': [
            'plugin_name = mylib.mymodule:initialize_func',
        ],
    },

During startup (and after loading the traditional script-based plugins),
pmxbot will load `mylib.mymodule` and call `initialize_func` from that
module (with no parameters).
`plugin_name` can be anything, but should be a name suitable to
identify the plugin. It is not necessary that initialize_func do
anything at all, but it must be present, and will be called during
startup.

Within the script you'll want to import the decorates you need to use with:
`from pmxbot.botbase import command, contains, execdelay, execat`. You'll then
decorate each function with the appropriate line so pmxbot registers it.

A command (!g) gets the @command decorator::

  @command("tinytear", aliases=('tt', 'tear', 'cry'), doc="I cry a tiny tear for you.")
  def tinytear(client, event, channel, nick, rest):
  	if rest:
  		return "/me sheds a single tear for %s" % rest
  	else:
  		return "/me sits and cries as a single tear slowly trickles down its cheek"

A response (when someone says something) uses the @contains decorator::

  @contains("sqlonrails")
  def yay_sor(client, event, channel, nick, rest):
  	karmaChange(botbase.logger.db, 'sql on rails', 1)
  	return "Only 76,417 lines..."

For an example of how to implement a setuptools-based plugin, see
the `wolframalpha plugin
<http://bitbucket.org/yougov/pmxbot-wolframalpha>`_.

Web Interface
=============
pmxbot includes a web server for allowing users to view the logs, read the
help, and check karma. You specify the host, port, base path, logo, title,
etc with the same YAML config file. Just run like ``pmxbotweb config.yaml``
and it will start up. I suggest using a tool like supervisor, daemontools,
cherryd or somesuch to keep it running.


