Ed. Note: The following note is from the author's original email announcing this CTCP specification file. All of this came after the original RFC 1459 for the IRC protocol. -Jolo

>     From: ben@gnu.ai.mit.edu
>     Subject: REVISED AND UPDATED CTCP SPECIFICATION
>     Date: Fri, 12 Aug 94 00:21:54 edt

>     As part of documenting the ZenIRC client, I expanded, revised, and
>     merged two text files that have been around on IRC archive sites for
>     some time: ctcp.doc, and dcc.protocol. The file "ctcp.doc" by Klaus
>     Zeuge described the basic CTCP protocol, and most of the CTCP commands
>     other than DCC.  The file Troy Rollo wrote, "dcc.protocol", contained
>     a description of the CTCP DCC messages as well as the protocols used
>     by DCC CHAT and DCC file transfers. I have merged the two documents to
>     produce this one, edited them for clarity, and expanded on them where I
>     found them unclear while implementing CTCP in the ZenIRC client.

>     --Ben

# The Client-To-Client Protocol (CTCP)

    Klaus Zeuge <sojge@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>
    Troy Rollo <troy@plod.cbme.unsw.oz.au>
    Ben Mesander <ben@gnu.ai.mit.edu>

    The Client-To-Client Protocol is meant to be used as a way to
    	1/	in general send structured data (such as graphics,
    		voice and different font information) between users
    		clients, and in a more specific case:
    	2/	place a query to a users client and getting an answer.

    *****************************************
    BASIC PROTOCOL BETWEEN CLIENTS AND SERVER
    *****************************************

    Characters between an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client and server are
    8 bit bytes (also known as octets) and can have numeric values from
    octal \000 to \377 inclusive (0 to 255 decimal). Some characters are
    special:

    	CHARS	::= '\000' .. '\377'
    	NUL	::= '\000'
    	NL	::= '\n'
    	CR	::= '\r'

    Note: `\' followed by three digits is used to denote an octal value in this
          paper. `\' followed by an alphabetic character is used to denote a C
          language style special character, and `..' denotes a range of characters.

    A line sent to a server, or received from a server (here called "low
    level messages") consist or zero or more octets (expcept NUL, NL or
    CR) with either a NL or CR appended.

    	L-CHARS	::= '\001' .. '\011' | '\013' | '\014' |
    		    '\016' .. '\377'
    	L-LINE	::= L-CHARS* CR LF

    Note: The `*' is used here to denote "zero or more of the preceding class of
          characters", and the `|' is used to denote alternation.

    A NUL is never sent to the server.

    *****************
    LOW LEVEL QUOTING
    *****************

    Even though messages to and from IRC servers cannot contain NUL, NL,
    or CR, it still might be desirable to send ANY character (in so called
    "middle level messages") between clients. In order for this to be
    possible, those three characters have to be quoted. Therefore a quote
    character is needed. Of course, the quote character itself has to be
    quoted too, since it is in-band.

    	M-QUOTE	::= '\020'

    (Ie a CNTRL/P).

    When sending a middle level message, if there is a character in the
    set { NUL, NL, CR, M-QUOTE } present in the message, that character is
    replaced by a two character sequence according to the following table:

    	NUL	--> M-QUOTE '0'
    	NL	--> M-QUOTE 'n'
    	CR	--> M-QUOTE 'r'
    	M-QUOTE	--> M-QUOTE M-QUOTE

    When receiving a low level message, if there is a M-QUOTE, look at the
    next character, and replace those two according to the following table
    to get the corresponding middle level message:

    	M-QUOTE '0'	--> NUL
    	M-QUOTE 'n'	--> NL
    	M-QUOTE 'r'	--> CR
    	M-QUOTE M-QUOTE	--> M-QUOTE

    If the character following M-QUOTE is not any of the listed
    characters, that is an error, so drop the M-QUOTE character from the
    message, optionally warning the user about it. For example, a string
    'x' M-QUOTE 'y' 'z' from a server dequotes into 'x 'y' 'z'.

    Before low level quoting, a message to the server (and in the opposite
    direction: after low level dequoting, a message from the server) looks
    like:

    	M-LINE	::= CHARS*

    ***********
    TAGGED DATA
    ***********

    To send both extended data and query/reply pairs between clients, an
    extended data format is needed. The extended data are sent in the text
    part of a middle level message (and after low level quoting, in the
    text part of the low level message).

    To send extended data inside the middle level message, we need some
    way to delimit it.  This is done by starting and ending extended data
    with a delimiter character, defined as:

    	X-DELIM	::= '\001'

    As both the starting and ending delimiter looks the same, the first
    X-DELIM is called the odd delimiter, and the one that follows, the
    even delimiter. The next one after that, an odd delimiter, then and
    even, and so on.

    When data are quoted (and conversely, before being dequoted) any number
    of characters of any kind except X-DELIM can be used in the extended
    data inside the X-DELIM pair.

    	X-CHR	::= '\000' | '\002' .. '\377'

    An extended message is either empty (nothing between the odd and even
    delimiter), has one or more non-space characters (any character but
    '\040') or has one or more non-space characters followed by a space
    followed by zero or more characters.

    	X-N-AS	::= '\000'  | '\002' .. '\037' | '\041' .. '\377'
    	SPC	::= '\040'
    	X-MSG	::= | X-N-AS+ | X-N-AS+ SPC X-CHR*

    Note: Here `+' is used to denote "one or more of the previous class of
          characters", and `*' is used to denote "zero or more of the previous
          class of characters".

    The characters up until the first SPC (or if no SPC, all of the X-MSG)
    is called the tag of the extended message. The tag is used to denote
    what kind of extended data is used.

    The tag can be *any* string of characters, and if it contains
    alphabetics, it is case sensitive, so upper and lower case matters.

    Extended data is only valid in PRIVMSG and NOTICE commands. If the
    extended data is a reply to a query, it is sent in a NOTICE, otherwise
    it is sent in a PRIVMSG. Both PRIVMSG and NOTICE to a user and to a
    channel may contain extended data.

    The text part of a PRIVMSG or NOTICE might contain zero or more
    extended messages, intermixed with zero or more chunks of non-extended
    data.

    ******************
    CTCP LEVEL QUOTING
    ******************

    In order to be able to send the delimiter X-DELIM inside an extended
    data message, it has to be quoted. This introduces another quote
    character (which differs from the low level quote character so it
    won't have to be quoted yet again).

    	X-QUOTE	::=	'\134'

    (a back slash - `\').

    When quoting on the CTCP level, only the actual CTCP message (extended
    data, queries, replies) are quoted. This enables users to actually
    send X-QUOTE characters at will. The following translations should be
    used:

    	X-DELIM	--> X-QUOTE 'a'
    	X-QUOTE	--> X-QUOTE X-QUOTE

    and when dequoting on the CTCP level, only CTCP messages are dequoted
    whereby the following table is used.

    	X-QUOTE 'a'	--> X-DELIM
    	X-QUOTE X-QUOTE	--> X-QUOTE

    If an X-QUOTE is seen with a character following it other than the
    ones above, that is an error and the X-QUOTE character should be
    dropped. For example the CTCP-quoted string 'x' X-QUOTE 'y' 'z'
    becomes after dequoting, the three character string 'x' 'y' 'z'.

    If a X-DELIM is found outside a CTCP message, the message will contain
    the X-DELIM. (This should only happen with the last X-DELIM when there
    are an odd number of X-DELIM's in a middle level message.)

    ****************
    QUOTING EXAMPLES
    ****************

    There are three levels of messages. The highest level (H) is the text
    on the user-to-client level. The middle layer (M) is on the level
    where CTCP quoting has been applied to the H-level message. The lowest
    level (L) is on the client-to-server level, where low level quoting
    has been applied to the M-level message.

    The following relations are true, with lowQuote(message) being a
    function doing the low level quoting, lowDequote(message) the low
    level dequoting function, ctcpQuote(message) the CTCP level quoting
    function, ctcpDequote(message) the CTCP level dequoting function, and
    ctcpExtract(message) the function which removes all CTCP messages from
    a message:

    	L = lowQuote(M)
    	M = ctcpDequote(L)

    	M = ctcpQuote(H)
    	H = ctcpDequote(ctcpExtract(M))

    When sending a CTCP message embedded in normal text:

    	M = ctcpQuote(H1) || '\001' || ctcpQuote(X) || '\001' || ctcpQuote(H2)

    Note: The operator || denotes string concatenation.

    Of course, there might be zero or more normal text messages and zero
    or more CTCP messages mixed.

    - --- Example 1 -----------------------------------------------------------------

    A user (called actor) wanting to send the string:

    	Hi there!\nHow are you?

    to user victim, i.e. a message where the user has entered an inline
    newline (how this is done, if at all, differs from client to client),
    will result internaly in the client in the command:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\nHow are you? \K?

    which will be CTCP quoted into:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\nHow are you? \\K?

    which in turn will be low level quoted into:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\020nHow are you? \\K?

    and sent to the server after appending a newline at the end.

    This will arrive on victim's side as:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\020nHow are you? \\K?

    (where the \\K would look similar to OK in SIS D47 et. al.) which after
    low level dequoting becomes:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\nHow are you? \\K?

    and after CTCP dequoting:

    	:actom PRIVMSG victim :Hi there!\nHow are you? \K?

    How this is displayed differs from client to client, but it suggested
    that a line break should occour between the words "there" and "How".

    - --- Example 2 -----------------------------------------------------------------

    If actor's client wants to send the string "Emacs wins" this might
    become the string "\n\t\big\020\001\000\\:" when being SED-encrypted
    [SED is a simple encryption protocol between IRC clients implemented
    with CTCP. I don't have any reference for it -- Ben] using some key,
    so the client starts by CTCP-quoting this string into the string
    "\n\t\big\020\\a\000\\\\:" and builds the M-level message:

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001SED \n\t\big\020\\a\000\\\\:\001

    which after low level quoting becomes:

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001SED \020n\t\big\020\020\\a\0200\\\\:\001

    which will be sent to the server, with a newline tacked on.

    On victim's side, the string:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :\001SED \020n\t\big\020\020\\a\0200\\\\:\001

    will be received from the server and low level dequoted into:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :\001SED \n\t\big\020\\a\000\\\\:\001

    whereafter the string "\n\t\big\020\\a\000\\\\:" will be extracted
    and first CTCP dequoted into "\n\t\big\020\001\000\\:" and then
    SED decoded getting back "Emacs wins" when using the same key.

    - --- Example 3 -----------------------------------------------------------------

    If the user actor wants to query the USERINFO of user victim, and is
    in the middle of a conversation, the client may decide to tack on
    USERINFO request on the end of a normal text message. Let's say actor
    wants to send the textmessage "Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor" and the CTCP
    request "USERINFO" to victim:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor

    plus:

    	USERINFO

    which after CTCP quoting become:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor

    plus:

    	USERINFO

    which gets merged into:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor\001USERINFO\001

    and after low level quoting:

    	PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\020n\t/actor\001USERINFO\001

    and sent off to the server.

    On victim's side, the message:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\020n\t/actor\001USERINFO\001

    arrives. This gets low level dequoted into:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor\001USERINFO\001

    and thereafter split up into:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor

    plus:

    	USERINFO

    After CTCP dequoting both, the message:

    	:actor PRIVMSG victim :Say hi to Ron\n\t/actor

    gets displayed, while the CTCP command:

    	USERINFO

    gets replied to. The reply might be:

    	USERINFO :CS student\n\001test\001

    which gets CTCP quoted into:

    	USERINFO :CS student\n\\atest\\a

    and sent in a NOTICE as it is a reply:

    	NOTICE actor :\001USERINFO :CS student\n\\atest\\a\001

    and low level quoted into:

    	NOTICE actor :\001USERINFO :CS student\020n\\atest\\a\001

    after which is it sent to victim's server.

    When arriving on actor's side, the message:

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001USERINFO :CS student\020n\\atest\\a\001

    gets low level dequoted into:

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001USERINFO :CS student\n\\atest\\a\001

    At this point, all CTCP replies get extracted, giving 1 CTCP reply and
    no normal NOTICE:

    	USERINFO :CS student\n\\atest\\a

    The remaining reply gets CTCP dequoted into:

    	USERINFO :CS student\n\001test\001

    and presumly displayed to user actor.

    *******************
    KNOWN EXTENDED DATA
    *******************

    Extended data passed between clients can be used to pass structured
    information between them. Currently known extended data types are:

    ACTION		- Used to simulate "role playing" on IRC.
    DCC		- Negotiates file transfers and direct tcp chat
    		  connections between clients.
    SED		- Used to send encrypted messages between clients.

    ACTION
    ======
    This is used by losers on IRC to simulate "role playing" games. An
    action message looks like the following:

    \001ACTION barfs on the floor.\001

    Clients that recieve such a message should format them to indicate the
    user who did this is performing an "action". For example, if the user
    "actor" sent the above message to the channel "#twilight_zone", other
    users clients might display the message as:

    [ACTION] actor->#twilight_zone: barfs on the floor.

    Presumably other users on the channel are suitably impressed.

    DCC
    ===
    DCC stands for something like "Direct Client Connection". CTCP DCC
    extended data messages are used to negotiate file transfers between
    clients and to negotiate chat connections over tcp connections between
    two clients, with no IRC server involved. Connections between clients
    involve protocols other than the usual IRC protocol. Due to this
    complexity, a full description of the DCC protocol is included
    separately at the end of this document in Appendix A.

    SED
    ===
    SED probably stands for something like "Simple Encryption D???". It is
    used by clients to exchange encrypted messages between clients. A
    message encoded by SED probably looks something like:

    \001SED encrypted-text-goes-here\001

    Clients which accept such messages should display them in decrypted
    form. It would be nice if someone documented this, and included the
    encryption scheme in an Appendix B.

    *************************
    KNOWN REQUEST/REPLY PAIRS
    *************************

    A request/reply pair is sent between the two clients in two phases.
    The first phase is to send the request. This is done with a "privmsg"
    command (either to a nick or to a channel -- it doesn't matter).

    The second phase is to send a reply. This is done with a "notice"
    command.

    The known request/reply pairs are for the following commands.

    FINGER		- Returns the user's full name, and idle time.
    VERSION		- The version and type of the client.
    SOURCE		- Where to obtain a copy of a client.
    USERINFO	- A string set by the user (never the client coder)
    CLIENTINFO	- Dynamic master index of what a client knows.
    ERRMSG		- Used when an error needs to be replied with.
    PING		- Used to measure the delay of the IRC network
    		  between clients.
    TIME		- Gets the local date and time from other clients.

    FINGER
    ======
    This is used to get a user's real name, and perhaps also the idle time
    of the user (this usage has been obsoleted by enhancements to the IRC
    protocol. The request is in a "privmsg" and looks like

    	\001FINGER\001

    while the reply is in a "notice" and looks like

    	\001FINGER :#\001

    where the # denotes contains information about the users real name,
    login name at clientmachine and idle time and is of type X-N-AS.

    VERSION
    =======
    This is used to get information about the name of the other client and
    the version of it. The request in a "privmsg" is simply

    	\001VERSION\001

    and the reply

    	\001VERSION #:#:#\001

    where the first # denotes the name of the client, the second # denotes
    the version of the client, the third # the enviroment the client is
    running in.

    Using

    	X-N-CLN	::= '\000' .. '\071' | '\073' .. '\377'

    the client name is a string of type X-N-CLN saying things like "Kiwi"
    or "ircII", the version saying things like "5.2" or "2.1.5c", the
    enviroment saying things like "GNU Emacs 18.57.19 under SunOS 4.1.1 on
    Sun SLC" or "Compiled with gcc -ansi under Ultrix 4.0 on VAX-11/730".

    SOURCE

    This is used to get information about where to get a copy of the
    client. The request in a "privmsg" is simply

    	\001SOURCE\001

    and the reply is zero or more CTCP replies of the form

    	\001SOURCE #:#:#\001

    followed by an end marker

    	\001SOURCE\001

    where the first # is the name of an Internet host where the client can
    be gotten from with anonymous FTP the second # a directory names, and
    the third # a space separated list of files to be gotten from that
    directory.

    Using

    	X-N-SPC	::= '\000' .. '\037' | '\041' .. '\377'

    the name of the FTP site is to be given by name like "cs.bu.edu" or
    "funic.funet.fi".

    The file name field is a directory specification optionally followed
    by one or more file names, delimited by spaces. If only a directory
    name is given, all files in that directory should be copied when
    retrieving the clients source. If some files are given, only those
    files in that directpry should be copied. Note that the spcification
    allows for all characters but space in the names, this includes
    allowing :. Examples are "pub/emacs/irc/" to get all files in
    directory pub/emacs/irc/, the client should be able to first login as
    user "ftp" and the give the command "CD pub/emacs/irc/", followed by
    the command "mget *". (It of course has to take care of binary and
    prompt mode too). Another example is "/pub/irc Kiwi.5.2.el.Z" in which
    case a "CD /pub/irc" and "get Kiwi.5.2.el.Z" is what should be done.

    USERINFO
    ========
    This is used to transmit a string which is settable by the user (and
    never should be set by the client). The query is simply

    	\001USERINFO\001

    with the reply

    	\001USERINFO :#\001

    where the # is the value of the string the client's user has set.

    CLIENTINFO
    ==========
    This is for client developers use to make it easier to show other
    client hackers what a certain client knows when it comes to CTCP. The
    replies should be fairly verbose explaining what CTCP commands are
    understood, what arguments are expected of what type, and what replies
    might be expected from the client.

    The query is the word CLIENTINFO in a "privmsg" optionally followed by
    a colon and one or more specifying words delimited by spaces, where
    the word CLIENTINFO by itself,

    	\001CLIENTINFO\001

    should be replied to by giving a list of known tags (see above in
    section TAGGED DATA). This is only intended to be read by humans.

    With one argument, the reply should be a description of how to use
    that tag. With two arguments, a description of how to use that
    tag's subcommand. And so on.

    ERRMSG
    ======
    This is used as a reply whenever an unknown query is seen. Also, when
    used as a query, the reply should echo back the text in the query,
    together with an indication that no error has happened. Should the
    query form be used, it is

    	\001ERRMSG #\001

    where # is a string containing any character, with the reply

    	\001ERRMSG # :#\001

    where the first # is the same string as in the query and the second #
    a short text notifying the user that no error has occurred.

    A normal ERRMSG reply which is sent when a corrupted query or some
    corrupted extended data is received, looks like

    	\001ERRMSG # :#\001

    where the first # is the the failed query or corrupted extended data
    and the second # a text explaining what the problem is, like "unknown
    query" or "failed decrypting text".

    PING
    ====
    Ping is used to measure the time delay between clients on the IRC
    network. A ping query is encoded in a privmsg, and has the form:

    \001PING timestamp\001

    where `timestamp' is the current time encoded in any form the querying
    client finds convienent. The replying client sends back an identical
    message inside a notice:

    \001PING timestamp\001

    The querying client can then subtract the recieved timestamp from the
    current time to obtain the delay between clients over the IRC network.

    TIME
    ====
    Time queries are used to determine what time it is where another
    user's client is running. This can be useful to determine if someone
    is probably awake or not, or what timezone they are in. A time query
    has the form:

    \001TIME\001

    On reciept of such a query in a privmsg, clients should reply with a
    notice of the form:

    \001TIME :human-readable-time-string\001

    For example:

    \001TIME :Thu Aug 11 22:52:51 1994 CST\001

    ********
    EXAMPLES
    ********

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001FINGER\001

    might return

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001FINGER :Please check my USERINFO
    	instead :Klaus Zeuge (sojge@mizar) 1 second has passed since
    	victim gave a command last.\001

    (this is only one line) or why not

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001FINGER :Please check my USERINFO
    	instead :Klaus Zeuge (sojge@mizar) 427 seconds (7 minutes and
    	7 seconds) have passed since victim gave a command last.\001

    if Klaus Zeuge happens to be lazy? :-)

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001CLIENTINFO\001

    might return

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001CLIENTINFO :You can request help of the
    	commands CLIENTINFO ERRMSG FINGER USERINFO VERSION by giving
    	an argument to CLIENTINFO.\001

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001CLIENTINFO CLIENTINFO\001

    might return

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001CLIENTINFO :CLIENTINFO with 0
    	arguments gives a list of known client query keywords. With 1
    	argument, a description of the client query keyword is
    	returned.\001

    while sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001clientinfo clientinfo\001

    probably will return something like

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001ERRMSG clientinfo clientinfo :Query is
    	unknown\001

    as tag "clientinfo" isn't known.

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001CLIENTINFO ERRMSG\001

    might return

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001CLIENTINFO :ERRMSG is the given answer
    	on seeing an unknown keyword. When seeing the keyword ERRMSG,
    	it works like an echo.\001

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001USERINFO\001

    might return the somewhat pathetically long

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001USERINFO :I'm studying computer
    	science in Uppsala, I'm male (somehow, that seems to be an
    	important matter on IRC:-) and I speak fluent swedish, decent
    	german, and some english.\001

    Sending

    	PRIVMSG victim :\001VERSION\001

    might return:

    	:victim NOTICE actor :\001VERSION Kiwi:5.2:GNU Emacs
    	18.57.19 under SunOS 4.1.1 on Sun
    	SLC:FTP.Lysator.LiU.SE:/pub/emacs Kiwi-5.2.el.Z
    	Kiwi.README\001

    if the client is named Kiwi of version 5.2 and is used under GNU Emacs
    18.57.19 running on a Sun SLCwith SunOS 4.1.1. The client claims a
    copy of it can be found with anonymous FTP on FTP.Lysator.LiU.SE after
    giving the FTP command "cd /pub/emacs/". There, one should get files
    Kiwi-5.2.el.Z and Kiwi.README; presumably one of the files tells how to
    proceed with building the client after having gotten the files.

    **********************************************************************
    Appendix A -- 		A description of the DCC protocol
    **********************************************************************

    	By Troy Rollo (troy@plod.cbme.unsw.oz.au)
    	Revised by Ben Mesander (ben@gnu.ai.mit.edu)

    	Troy Rollo, the original implementor of the DCC protocol, said
    that the DCC protocol was never designed to be portable to clients
    other than IRCII. However, time has shown that DCC is useable in
    environments other than IRCII. IRC clients in diverse languages, such
    as ksh, elisp, C, and perl have all had DCC implementations.

    		Why DCC?
    		========

    	DCC allows the user to overcome some limitations of the IRC
    server network and to have a somewhat more secure chat connection
    while still in an IRC-oriented protocol.

    	DCC uses direct TCP connections between the clients taking
    part to carry data. There is no flood control, so packets can be sent
    at full speed, and there is no dependance on server links (or load
    imposed on them). In addition, since only the initial handshake for
    DCC conections is passed through the IRC network, it makes it harder
    for operators with cracked servers to spy on personal messages.

    		How?
    		====

    	The initial socket for a DCC connection is created
    by the side that initiates (Offers) the connection. This socket
    should be a TCP socket bound to INADDR_ANY, listening for
    connections.

    	The Initiating client, on creating the socket, should
    send its details to the target client using the CTCP command
    DCC. This command takes the form:

    	DCC type argument address port [size]

    type	 - The connection type.
    argument - The connectin type dependant argument.
    address	 - The host address of the initiator as an integer.
    port	 - The port or the socket on which the initiator expects
    	   to receive the connection.
    size     - If the connection type is "SEND" (see below), then size
    	   will indicate the size of the file being offered. Obsolete
    	   IRCII clients do not send this, so be prepared if this is
    	   not present.

    The address, port, and size should be sent as ASCII representations of
    the decimal integer formed by converting the values to host byte order
    and treating them as an unsigned long, unsigned short, and unsigned
    long respectively.

    	Implementations of the DCC protocol should be prepared to
    accept further arguments in a CTCP DCC message. There has been some
    discussion of adding another argument that would specify the type of
    file being transferred - text, binary, and perhaps others if DCC is
    implemented on operating systems other than UNIX. If additional
    arguments are added to the protocol, they should have semantics such
    that clients which ignore them will interoperate with clients that
    don't in a sensible way.

    	The following DCC connection types are defined:

    Type	Purpose					Argument
    CHAT	To carry on a semi-secure conversation	the string "chat"
    SEND	To send a file to the recipient		the file name

    Although the following subcommand is included in the IRCII DCC command,
    it does _not_ transmit a DCC request via IRC, and thus is not
    discussed in this document:

    TALK	Establishes a TALK connection

    		Implementation
    		==============

    	The CHAT and SEND connection types should not be
    accepted automatically as this would create the potential for
    terrorism. Instead, they should notify the user that an
    offer has been made, and allow the user to accept it.

    	The recipient should have the opportunity to rename a file
    offered with the DCC SEND command prior to retrieving it. It is also
    desirable to ensure that the offered file will not overwrite an
    existing file.

    	Older IRCII clients send the entire pathname of the file being
    transmitted. This is annoying, and newer clients should simply send
    the filename portion of the file being transmitted.

    	The port number should be scrutinized - if the port number is
    in the UNIX reserved port range, the connection should only be
    accepted with caution.

    	If it is not possible in the client implementation language to
    handle a 32-bit integer (for instance emacs 18 elisp and ksh 88), then
    it is often possible to use the hostname in the originating PRIVMSG.

    	The following are the steps which should occur in the clients
    (this description assumes use of the BSD socket interface on a UNIX
    system).

    Initiator:
    	DCC command issued.
    	Create a socket, bind it to INADDR_ANY, port 0, and
    		make it passive (a listening socket).
    	Send the recipient a DCC request via CTCP supplying
    		the address and port of the socket. (This
    		is ideally taken from the address of the local
    		side of the socket which is connected to a
    		server. This is presumably the interface on
    		the host which is closest to the rest of
    		the net, and results in one less routing hop
    		in the case of gateway nodes).
    	Continue normally until a connection is received.

    	On a connection:
    	Accept the connection.
    	Close the original passive socket.
    	Conduct transaction on the new socket.

    Acceptor:
    	CTCP DCC request received.
    	Record information on the DCC request and notify the user.

    	At this point, the USER should be able to abort (close) the
    	request, or accept it. The request should be accepted with
    	a command specifying the sender, type, and argument, or
    	a subset of these where no ambiguity exists.

    	If accepted, create a TCP socket.
    	Connect the new socket to the address and port supplied.
    	Conduct the transaction over the socket.

    		Type specific details.
    		======================

    CHAT	Data sent across a CHAT connection should be sent line-by-line
    	without any prefixes or commands. A CHAT connection ends when
    	one party issues the DCC CLOSE command to their clients, which
    	causes the socket to be closed and the information on the connection
    	to be discarded. The terminating character of each line is a
    	newline character, '\n'.

    FILE	Data is sent in packets, rather than dumped in a stream manner.
    	This allows the DCC SEND connection to survive where an FTP
    	connection might fail. The size of the packets is up to the
    	client, and may be set by the user. Smaller packets result
    	in a higher probability of survival over bad links.
    	The recipient should acknowledge each packet by transmitting
    	the total number of bytes received as an unsigned, 4 byte
    	integer in network byte order. The sender should not continue
    	to transmit until the recipient has acknowledged all data
    	already transmitted. Additionally, the sender should not
    	close the connection until the last byte has been
    	acknowledged by the recipient.

    	Older IRCII clients do not send the file size of the file
    	being transmitted via DCC. For those clients, note that it is
    	not possible for the recipient to tell if the entire file has
    	been received - only the sender has that information, although
    	IRCII does not report it. Users generally verify the transfer
    	by checking file sizes. Authors of clients are urged to use
    	the size feature.

    	Note also that no provision is made for text translation.

    	The original block size used by IRCII was 1024. Other clients
    have adopted this. Note, however, that an implementation should accept
    any blocksize. IRCII currently allows a user-settable blocksize.

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