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Or there are some that do not? What are they?

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@Matt unless asker is about to ask for a regex to identify IRC commands :) –  AakashM Apr 27 '10 at 13:26

3 Answers 3

They all start with "/" beacuse you need to differ if you are typing text or commands...


I need to make this clear. The other answers are right. It isn´t the irc itself that uses /. It is your client.

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No. That's just a way IRC client found to differ from 'normal' text.

You can access to all supported server command by using /quote cmd or /raw cmd


/quote whois bgy

That will send a raw command to the server.

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No! The IRC protocol uses no /s. For example, changing your nick is done with a "NICK name" command, and regular speech is done with a "PRIVMSG #channel :text" command. It's up to the client to provide methods to use these commands, and for that, the control character could be anything! However, this does mean that most clients stick to something consistent, so it is likely all commands will be preceeded by a / in your client.

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Nice answer. Although I wish someone made a IRC client with command / insert modes like VI. –  Josh K Apr 27 '10 at 13:33
that would be pretty great - can't irssi be configured like that, though? ish. –  Phoshi Apr 27 '10 at 13:34
Haven't looked into it, I've been using Colloquy lately. –  Josh K Apr 27 '10 at 13:38
So it should be THE RFC plus your irc client documentation :) –  Ivan Petrushev Apr 27 '10 at 14:50
VimIRC - vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=931 –  Boris Guéry Apr 28 '10 at 8:09

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