Any time you ask an IRC server some type of question, it will send you a reply. It can't send back plain data though, it has to code it in some way so that the IRC client can understand what the data is for. Confused? A simple and would be if you tried to join a channel but couldn't get in, The server would reply with this string: The first section is the server that is replying to you. This can come in handy, as you will sometimes receive a reply from a server your not on. The next portion, 473, is the actual numeric. The message the server sends us tells us we can't get into the channel, but why? 473 is the reply for "Channel is invite only". There are other similar error codes, such as 471 for "Channel is full", or 474 for "You're banned"

The rest of the string will contain information pertaining to the reply. The rest of the string in the above example is telling us what channel we tried to join that was invite only.

The main use that most people use raw events for is to customize the way their information is printed out, though there are many uses. You can change the way your /whois is printed out, customize error messages, gather ban list information, and much more.

Raw events work just like other mIRC events, such as on join, on kick, on text, etc. They are triggered by something that happens, and go in your remote section. The format is slightly different then a regular event though, and looks like this:
In the example above, we could echo that error by doing this:
To fully understand how to use raw events, you must first understand the parameters. You use $1, $2, $3, etc, just like you do in an alias. $1 would be the first 'word' in the servers reply, $2 would be the second, and $1- would be the full reply. One thing to note is that EVERY reply from the server will always contain your nickname, so $1 is always your nickname.

On other thing to note is that you must use the /halt command if you don't want mIRC to print out its normal text in relation to a raw event. I've added the halt command on my example so that only my message is displays, and mIRC hides its own standard error reply.

A very useful technique for learning raw events is to add this to your remote section:
This will trigger any time a raw event goes off, and will print out all the information to your status window for you to study. If you plan to customize the way mIRC looks, this will also let you catch any of the raw events that you didn't script for. One other magic identifier that you can use in raw events is $nick, which will tell you the server that sent the reply.

Before we get into some full fledged examples, you may want to start by downloading the Numeric Help File. This will detail all of the codes that are out there, so you can look it over to see what your capable of doing with raw. The information there is designed primary for the EFnet network, and has not been updated for a while. If you normally use another network, or are trying to take advantage of new server features, you may not find the information in the help.

One of the most common uses for raw is to capture whois information. When you do a /whois, the server sends several replies at once. These can all be captured and manipulated as you please. First, add our previous example to your remote:
Now, whois yourself. You should get a display similar to this in your status window: I get 5 separate replies from my /whois. Some may not be present at all times. For instance, if I part all channels, raw 319 will not trigger. If the server doesn't care to share my idle time, raw 317 would be missing. If I suddenly became an IRC oper, raw 313 would show up.

We'll start with the first line. it tells me that my hostname and real name are contained in raw 311. As I mentioned, $1 is the first word, and is ALWAYS your nickname. As you can see, i used a second client to /whois the first one. $2 in this example would be _Yeti_, as was the target of the whois. $3 contains my ident, yeti. $4 is my hostname. That * is a 'word' by itself, so $5 would contain a single *. $6 and on would be whatever was in my real name field. The get it all, you would use $6-

You may have noticed that this is slightly different from way mIRC would print out whois information. For instance, you get yeti@slacker.to in a regular whois. Your script would have to do a bit of work here to combine the ident and the host. If you wanted to customize this info, you could do something like this:
You can do whatever you want with the information contained in raw events. I could store the information in variables, write it to a file, or just stop it from printing completely. You can add colors to the echoes, flip and bend it however you want basically.

I'll skip to the idle information now, as the way the server send it may seem rather odd. The first number there, 529, is the number of seconds idle. You can use $duration to convert this to something readable. The second number is a timestamp of when I logged on. That can also be converted to something more readable with $asctime. Heres an example:
In my case, it would print out: raw 318 is somewhat common among many events as well. This is just the server telling you its done sending information. For instance, when you join a channel, the servers send you all the users nicknames. When its done, it send an extra raw to say "Thats everyone, I'm done now". You can use this is a way to ensure that you have received all the information you need.

Another common request for raw events is to process bans in a channel. This can be used to maintain your own custom internal banlist, or to clear all the bans on a channel. Just like /whois, you have to ask the server to send you information. To get a banlist, simply type /mode #channel +b. When I do this, I get this output: In this example, you see that the server sends multiple replies for the same number. Many events will do this, like /who, /names, etc. There is also an extra event indicating that the list is complete.

Again, $1 is going to be your current nickname. $2 is going to be the channel that you requested the list for. $3 is the hostname that is currently banned. $4 tells you who set the ban, and $5 contains a timestamp of when it was set. You can use $asctime again to convert this to something readable.

A simple way to clear all the bans would be to do this:
As the information on each ban was received, you could grab the hostname and remove the ban. However, if there are 10 or 15 bans, this can get quite messy! Here's a more complicated version that would allow you to do 4 at a time.
So.. how does it work? As we receive each ban, we are adding the hostname to a variable called %bans. After we add the host, we see how many we have stored. If there are 4, we clear out 4 at once, then delete the variable. The next time around, we have an empty variable and try and add 4 more again.

In case you have an odd number of bans, we also have to check one last time as the ban list is finished. Since we only wipe bans every time we get 4, the above script would never unset them if there were only 3 bans. Once the server tells us that we have the ban list, we verify if %bans exists. if it does, we still have one last batch to get rid of. To avoid errors from the server, I used $str to repeat the b enough times to cover each unban. We could specify -bbbb, but the server might complain if you tell it your going to do 4 unbans and then only specify one hostname. The last thing we do is unset out %bans variable, and we're done!

001 : Welcome to the Internet Relay Network nickname

002 : Your host is server, running version ver

003 : This server was created datetime

004 server ver usermode chanmode

005 : map

005 protocols : are available on this server

007 : End of /MAP

008 num : Server notice mask (hex)

211 connection sendq sentmsg sentbyte recdmsg recdbyte pen

212 command uses bytes

213 C address * server port class

214 N address * server port class

215 I ipmask * hostmask port class

216 k address * username details

217 P port ?? ??

218 Y class ping freq maxconnect sendq

219 char :End of /STATS report

221 mode

222 B server * ?? ?? ??

223 E hostmask * username ?? ??

224 D ipmask * username ?? ??

241 L address * server ?? ??

242 : Server Up num days, time

243 o mask password user ?? class

244 H address * server ?? ??

247 G address timestamp :reason

248 U host * ?? ?? ??

249 : info

250 : Highest connection count: total (num clients)

251 : There are user users and invis invisible on serv servers

252 num perator(s) online

253 num :unknown connection(s)

254 num :channels formed

255 : I have user clients and serv servers

256 : Administrative info about server

257 : info

258 : info

259 : info

263 : Server load is temporarily too heavy. Please wait a while and try again.

265 : Current local users: curr Max: max

266 : Current global users: curr Max: max

272 nick : End of Silence List

280 address timestamp reason

281 : End of G-line List

290 : num ***** topic *****

291 : text

292 : ***** Go to #dalnethelp if you have any further questions *****

293 : text

294 : Your help-request has been forwarded to Help Operators

298 nick : Nickname conflict has been resolved

301 nick : away

302 : userhosts

303 : nicknames

305 : You are no longer marked as being away

306 : You have been marked as being away

307 : userips

307 nick : has identified for this nick

310 nick : looks very helpful

311 nick username address * : info

312 nick server : info

312 nick server : signoff

313 nick : is an IRC Operator

314 nick username address * : info

315 request : End of /WHO list.

317 nick seconds signon : info

318 request : End of /WHOIS list.

319 nick : channels

321 Channel : Users Name

322 channel users : topic

323 : End of /LIST

324 channel mode

328 channel :url

329 channel time

331 channel : No topic is set.

332 channel : topic

333 channel nickname time

341 nick channel

346 channel invite nick time

347 channel : End of Channel Invite List

348 channel exception nick time

349 channel : End of Channel Exception List

351 version.debug server :info

352 channel username address server nick flags :hops info

353 = channel : names

364 server hub : hops info

365 mask : End of /LINKS list.

366 channel : End of /NAMES list.

367 channel ban nick time

368 channel : End of Channel Ban List

369 request : End of WHOWAS

371 : info

372 : - info

374 : End of /INFO list.

375 : - server Message of the Day -

376 : End of /MOTD command.

377 : - info

378 : - info

381 : You are now an IRC Operator

382 file : Rehashing

391 server : time

401 nickname : No such nick

401 * : Target left UnderNet. Failed to deliver: message

402 server : No such server

403 channel : No such channel

404 channel : Cannot send to channel

405 channel : You have joined too many channels

406 nickname : There was no such nickname

407 target duplicate recipients. No message delivered

409 : No origin specified

411 : No recipient given (command)

412 : No text to send

413 mask : No toplevel domain specified

414 mask : Wildcard in toplevel Domain

416 command : Too many lines in the output, restrict your query

421 command : Unknown command

422 : MOTD File is missing

423 server : No administrative info available

431 : No nickname given

432 nickname : Erroneus Nickname

433 nickname : Nickname is already in use.

433 nickname : Nickname is registered to someone else.

436 nickname : Nickname collision KILL

437 channel : Cannot change nickname while banned on channel

438 nick : Nick change too fast. Please wait sec seconds.

439 target : Target change too fast. Please wait sec seconds.

441 nickname channel : They aren't on that channel

442 channel : You're not on that channel

443 nickname channel : is already on channel

445 : SUMMON has been disabled

446 : USERS has been disabled

451 command : Register first.

455 : Your username ident contained the invalid character(s) chars and has been changed to new. Please use only the characters 0-9 a-z A-Z _ - or . in your username. Your username is the part before the @ in your email address.

461 command : Not enough parameters

462 : You may not reregister

467 channel : Channel key already set

468 channel only servers can change that mode

471 channel : Cannot join channel (+l)

472 char : is unknown mode char to me

473 channel : Cannot join channel (+i)

474 channel : Cannot join channel (+b)

475 channel : Cannot join channel (+k)

477 channel : Channel doesn't support modes

477 channel : You need a registered nick to join that channel.

478 channel ban : Channel ban/ignore list is full

481 permission Denied- You're not an IRC operator

482 channel : You're not channel operator

483 : You cant kill a server!

484 nick channel : Cannot kill, kick or deop channel service

485 channel : Cannot join channel (reason)

491 : No O-lines for your host

501 : Unknown MODE flag

502 : Cant change mode for other users

510 : You must resolve the nickname conflict before you can proceed

511 mask : Your silence list is full

512 : Authorization required to use Registered Nickname nick

512 address : No such gline

512 nick : Maximum size for WATCH-list is num entries

513 If you can't connect, type /QUOTE PONG code or /PONG code

600 nick userid host time :logged offline

601 nick userid host time :logged online

602 nick userid host time :stopped watching

603 : You have mine and are on other WATCH entries

604 nick userid host time :is online

605 nick userid host time :is offline

606 : nicklist

607 : End of WATCH query

000 nick PROP channel (ownerkey,hostkey,onjoin,onpart) (key or message)

800 1 0 GateKeeper,NTLM 512 *

801 channel (owner,host,voice,grant) entry (how long) (address of person you entered entry) tag

802 channel (owner,host,voice,grant) entry

803 channel Start of access entries

804 channel (owner,host,voice,grant) entry (how long) (address of person you entered entry) tag

805 channel End of access entries

820 channel (owner,host,voice,grant) Clear

908 channel access denied

914 channel duplicated access entry

923 channel Whispers disabled in channel

927 channel Already in channel

999 Unknown error code 75476594