The page encodings and locales discusses how to tell EPIC what encoding you are using locally.
EPIC will automatically send all your messages to IRC in UTF-8, and will automatically handle any incoming messages in UTF-8. But if you receive a non-UTF8 message, or you want to send a non-UTF8 message, you need to tell EPIC what encoding to use.
An ENCODING rule contains three parts
Either side is optional, along with the slash. Server parts are expected to contain dots, and channels are expected to start with a channel name char (#, &, +, etc), and a nick is everything else. You should always include the slash if you think EPIC might misinterpret your nick or server as the other (such as when you use server groups – see examples below)
/ENCODING
Show all encoding rules – there are always three built in rules (discussed below)
/ENCODING <rule>
Show one specific rule – you must type the <rule> exactly
/ENCODING <rule> NONE
Delete a rule
/ENCODING <rule> <encoding>
Create a new rule using the given encoding.
ENCODING rules have overlap – so when EPIC needs to be able to choose between multiple rules, it does this:
| Priority | Rule Form | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | server/nickname | A specific nick on a specific server |
| 2 | /nickname | A specific nick on ALL servers |
| 3 | server/channel | A specific channel on a specific server |
| 4 | /channel | A specific channel on ALL servers |
| 5 | server/ | ALL nicks and channels for a server that don't have their own rule |
| 6 | “irc” | There is a builtin rule “irc” used when no other rules apply |
The server part follows the same rules as /SERVER -UPDATE
If your server description contains a port, that must match as well
/ENCODING 4 KOI8-R
Server 4, and anybody on Server 4 that doesn't have its own rule uses KOI8-R
/ENCODING EFNet/ CP437
Any server belonging to group “EFNet”, and anybody who doesn't have their own rule uses CP437. Note the trailing slash is necessary because otherwise “EFNet” would be considered a nickname.
/ENCODING hop ISO-8859-1
Any hop I talk to uses ISO-8859-1
/ENCODING EFNet/hop UTF-8
Except for the hop on EFNet, who uses UTF-8
/ENCODING irc.rusnet.com:6679 KOI8-R
When I connect to irc.rusnet.com on port 6679, it uses KOI8-R
/ENCODING irc.rusnet.com:6667 UTF-8
When I connect to irc.rusnet.com on port 6667, it uses UTF-8
There are three built in encoding rules which you cannot delete and probably shouldn't change.
| Rule | Explanation |
|---|---|
| irc | Any non-utf8 message received from irc is assumed to be in this encoding (default: ISO-8859-1) |
| console | The encoding EPIC thinks you are using at the console (default: set from your locale) |
| scripts | Any non-utf8 script you load is assumed to be this encoding (default: CP437) |
The /ENCODING command first appeared in EPIC5-1.1.8