Tags: patch

One of the first messages emitted in a traditional IRC exchange is the
USER command [1]. Its first parameter is referred to variously as
username, login, and user ID. Historically, IRCds would sometimes derive
the user portion of a message's "source" field, from this parameter,
yielding something like :nick!~user@hostname for messages relayed on a
client's behalf. But that spot was long ago usurped by the account
services username, and over time, the role of the plain username has
diminished to the point where some progressives now consider it
essentially meaningless. ERC was perhaps ahead of its time in this
regard, having only ever afforded it second-class status.

However. This perceived irrelevance hasn't stopped various IRCds and
bouncers from requisitioning the field for their own devices. One
example is the quasi convention of

  <bouncer-account>@<client-id>/<configured-network-id>

popularized by BNCs like ZNC. A common source of frustration for new ERC
users relying on such endpoints is finding a way to specify a value for
this temporarily, for a single entry-point invocation. Central to this
issue is the fact that by default, ERC connections are "asynchronous."
Indeed, let-binding this variable while invoking an entry point often
fails because its extent evaporates before it can exert any influence.
As such, users are tripped up when wanting to fire off multiple
entry-point commands at once or in rapid succession.

This patch aims to change that. See #48598 for accompanying tweaks to
doc/misc/erc.texi. Thanks.

P.S. Bonus question: should the username be configurable when invoking
an entry point interactively? Or would that just be excess noise?


[1] https://modern.ircdocs.horse/#user-message


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.31, cairo version 1.17.4)
 of 2022-04-05 built on localhost
Repository revision: e2fb5ecaea67497224455fdbfe4850a5a74c9d00
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