[Erc-help] supporting foreign characters in server messages

[Damien E. <erc...@re...>]

Hi folks,

I jumped on a network the other day which doesn't use any English, and
their server messages (such as MOTD and LIST messages) are sent using
a 7bit character encoding (iso-2022-jp). You can test it if you want
want by going to irc.2ch.net.

Unfortunately it seems like ERC can't cope with foreign characters in
the server messages yet - at least not on my setup. I hacked up a
quick patch to fix the problem for me, and thought someone might be
interested. It's probably not suitable for inclusion in ERC yet, but I
wanted to know if anyone has thought of a better way to support
foreign characters in this context. Note that I changed the TOPIC
handler since I thought a more generalised solution would be better -
which means that after the patch is applied /topic messages won't be
customisable on a per-channel basis, until
erc-decode-server-message-string is improved.

Any thoughts?

Damien

--- erc-backend.el	10 Nov 2004 17:01:42 +0900	1.15
+++ erc-backend.el	05 Dec 2004 18:39:31 +0900	
@@ -110,6 +110,19 @@
   (command-args '() :type list)
   (contents "" :type string))
 
+(defvar erc-delayed-decoding-responses '("PRIVMSG" "NOTICE")
+  "A list of responses which handle character decoding by themselves")
+
+(defun erc-decode-server-message-string (str msg)
+  "Decode a server message if a separate handler won't do it later.
+This is useful for /lists, /topics etc on international networks.
+It could modify target based on the network or other information in
+the future."
+  (let ((target nil)) ; NYI
+    (if (member (erc-response.command msg) erc-delayed-decoding-responses)
+        str
+      (erc-decode-string-from-target str target))))
+
 (defun erc-parse-server-response (proc string)
   "Parse and act upon a complete line from an IRC server.
 PROC is the process (connection) from which STRING was received.
@@ -135,15 +148,19 @@
 
 	(while (and posn
 		    (not (eq (aref string posn) ?:)))
-	  (push (let* ((bposn posn)
-                       (eposn (string-match " " string bposn)))
-                  (setq posn (and eposn
-                                  (string-match "[^ ]" string eposn)))
-                  (substring string bposn eposn))
-                (erc-response.command-args msg)))
+	  (push
+           (erc-decode-server-message-string
+            (let* ((bposn posn)
+                   (eposn (string-match " " string bposn)))
+              (setq posn (and eposn
+                              (string-match "[^ ]" string eposn)))
+              (substring string bposn eposn)) msg)
+            (erc-response.command-args msg)))
 	(when posn
-      (let ((str (substring string (1+ posn))))
-        (push str (erc-response.command-args msg))))
+          (let ((str (substring string (1+ posn))))
+            (push
+             (erc-decode-server-message-string str msg)
+             (erc-response.command-args msg))))
 
     (setf (erc-response.contents msg)
           (first (erc-response.command-args msg)))
@@ -665,8 +682,7 @@
 (define-erc-response-handler (TOPIC)
   nil nil
   (let* ((ch (first (erc-response.command-args parsed)))
-         (topic (erc-trim-string (erc-decode-string-from-target
-                                  (erc-response.contents parsed) ch)))
+         (topic (erc-trim-string (erc-response.contents parsed)))
          (time (format-time-string "%T %m/%d/%y" (current-time))))
     (multiple-value-bind (nick login host)
         (erc-parse-user (erc-response.sender parsed))