Automatic authentication in rcirc

Question

I'm trying to achieve the automatic authentication of my registered nickname on Freenode, so that I can join the #emacs IRC channel.

Since I upload my Emacs config to a public repository, I've opted to grab the personal data of my nickname and password from a file on my local machine.

Below is the code I've come up with trying to achieve this. And I don't know why it's not working.

It seems like a trivial task to accomplish, but I'm at a loss; not knowing if it's a problem with the syntax, semantics, and/or the way the package handles my nickname/password.

(defun jd:get-string-from-file (filePath beg end)
  (with-temp-buffer
    (insert-file-contents filePath nil beg end)
    (buffer-string)))

(defvar jd:irc-nickname (jd:get-string-from-file "~/.authinfo" 0 15))
(defvar jd:irc-password (jd:get-string-from-file "~/.authinfo" 16 26))

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;;; `rcirc.el'
(setq rcirc-default-nick jd:irc-nickname)
(setq rcirc-authinfo '(("freenode" nickserv jd:irc-nickname jd:irc-password)))
(setq rcirc-server-alist '(("irc.freenode.net" :port 6667 :channels ("#emacs"))))

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 09 '18 at 18:41

The problem (that I see) is this line:

(setq rcirc-authinfo '(("freenode" nickserv jd:irc-nickname jd:irc-password)))

If you C-h v rcirc-authinfo, the value will be ("freenode" nickserv jd:irc-nickname jd:irc-password). I'm not sure if rcirc accepts symbols for nickname and password, but I bet not.

The problem is, the quote ' quotes everything, including jd:irc-nickname and jd:irc-password, so they are left unevaluated.

What you want to do is use backquote `, which enables you to evaluate seleced elements:

(setq rcirc-authinfo `(("freenode" nickserv ,jd:irc-nickname ,jd:irc-password)))

Example:

(setq mynick "pony")
"pony"

(setq mypass "password")
"password"

'(mynick mypass)
(mynick mypass)

`(,mynick ,mypass)
("pony" "password")

Relevant manual node: (elisp) Backquote.

Automatic authentication in rcirc

1 Answers1