Mirk — Holck's IRC Client

A lightweight terminal IRC client written in C with automatic charset conversion and ircII-style window levels.

Features

• Automatic charset conversion — detects UTF-8, UTF-16 (BOM), and ISO-8859-1 input; always sends ISO-8859-1 on the wire
• Window levels — isolated windows with independent 500-line scrollback:
  • Window 1: Status (server messages, numerics, notices)
  • Window 2: Private messages
  • Windows 3–9: Channels
• Status bar — shows current window, channel, nick prefix (@/+), and channel modes
• UTF-8 terminal support — full multi-byte input editing
• CTCP VERSION reply with OS info
• SIGWINCH handling (terminal resize)
• Ident — works with system identd on port 113
• Real name from passwd GECOS field

Building

make

Requires only a C compiler and POSIX headers. No external dependencies.

Usage

./irc <nick> <server> [port]

Port defaults to 6667.

Key Bindings

Key	Action
ESC+1–9	Switch window
Ctrl-A	Beginning of line
Ctrl-E	End of line
Ctrl-U	Kill to beginning (yank buffer)
Ctrl-K	Kill to end (yank buffer)
Ctrl-Y	Yank (paste)
Ctrl-D	Quit (EOF)
Ctrl-C	Quit prompt (Y/N, default N)

Commands

Command	Description
/join #channel	Join channel (assigned to current window)
/part [#channel]	Part channel (defaults to current)
/msg <target> <text>	Send private message
/nick <newnick>	Change nickname
/mode <target> <modes>	Set mode
/whois <nick>	WHOIS query
/wii <nick>	Extended WHOIS (queries remote server)
/quit [reason]	Quit (default: "See you later")
/raw <line>	Send raw IRC command

Typing text without a / prefix sends to the channel on the current window.

Window Workflow

1. Press ESC+3 to switch to window 3
2. /join #channel — the channel is bound to that window
3. Press ESC+4, /join #other — second channel on window 4
4. ESC+1 to check status, ESC+2 for private messages

Each window maintains its own scrollback. Switching redraws the full history.

CTCP VERSION Reply

Holck's Mirk, OS: Linux 6.x.x x86_64 :: This space available for rent

License

Public domain.