IRC Collective User's Manual


Contents
========

* About the IRC Collective
* Using the parser
* Using the web application
* Frequently asked questions
* Getting support
* Contributing


About the IRC Collective
========================

TODO

Features
--------

Parser:
-Parse IRC logfiles
-Process a single logfile or an entire directory
-Supports Eggdrop, Irssi, mIRC and X-Chat format
-Output to an SQL database
-Definable inputformats and outputhandlers
-Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite as database backend
-Fetch web content
-(planned) Output to CSV, XHTML and XML
-(planned) Support other logfile formats
-(planned) Using threads to speed up fetching web content

Web application:
-Highlighted paged logfiles
-Logfile archive using a hyperlinked calendar
-Search
-Links
-Browsable image gallery
-(work in progress) Create conversations
-(work in progress) Create quotes
-(work in progress) Pastebin
-(planned) Advanced search
-(planned) Statistics


Using the parser
================

For an overview of available arguments you can use to invoke the parser, type:

./parselog --help

For help on the modules, type:

./parselog --help-modules

To parse today's logfile using a configuration file, type:

./parselog --with-config=conf/eggdrop.conf --today

To parse an entire directory, type:

./parselog --with-config=conf/eggdrop.conf --directory=/home/irc/logs/

Notice the trailing slash at the end.

Alternatively, you can ommit the --directory argument:

./parselog --with-config=conf/eggdrop.conf

For this to work, the directory has to be defined inside the configuration.

To parse a single logfile, type:

./parselog --with-config=conf/eggdrop.conf \
--logfile=/home/irc/logs/#collective.log.200708243

Even if a directory was defined inside the configuration file, it will be
ignored.


Using the web application
=========================

TODO: how to's


Frequently asked questions
==========================

Q: Which logfile formats can the parser parse?
A: Currently Eggdrop, Irssi, mIRC and X-Chat are supported.

Q: What about unsupported logfile formats?
A: You can add other logfile formats yourself by defining a new input format.
   There is a template included in the distribution archive that you can use
   as a basis.

Q: What operating systems are supported?
A: Virtually all operating systems that support Perl.

Q: What databases can be used as a backend?
A: Currently MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite are supported.

Q: What web servers can be used to host the web application?
A: Apache and Microsoft IIS. Maybe others as well, let us know if it worked
   with another web server.

Q: Why is Perl chosen as the scripting language?
A: Perl is very good at parsing plain text and because Perl is available on a
   lot of platforms.

Q: How should my logfiles be named so the parser can find them?
A: Your logfiles must be rotated daily and conform to a certain naming
   convention, see the note on logfiles in the installation guide.


Getting support
===============

Forums:

http://www.irc-collective.org/forum/

IRC Channel:

irc://irc.freenode.net/collective

Support mailinglist:

irc-collective-support@lists.sourceforge.net


Contributing
============

If you are interested in contributing to the development of this project,
please take a look at:

http://www.irc-collective.org/development