Open Source IRC client software

Question

What is a good example of an Open Source IRC client for Windows or Linux? If not, something free and extensible will do.

The reason I would like this to be open source is that I wouldn't mind being able to understand how the message formatting is implemented in such a project.

Answer 1

irssi is both free, and open source, and has windows ports.

However, if you're trying to learn the protocol, I suggest reading the specification rather than trying to reverse engineer a complex client.

Answer 2

Pidgin (multi-protocol), Xchat (dedicated to IRC) and Chatzilla (built on the mozilla framework and available as add-on for firefox. Written in JavaScript and XUL and therefore perhaps more accessible for your purpose) are open source clients that support IRC. You can also check the links below:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_commands
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat#Technical_information

Answer 3

XChat for Linux/anything else than Windows, AND XChat-WDK for Windows.

Answer 4

PircBot is an IRC API for Java.

Answer 5

Throwing WeeChat in the mix also then :) Used to use irssi, but I lost my config files and I didn't want to rewrite everything. Good thing weechat has saner default settings than irssi.