RAC protocol

Description of the Sugoma’s “IRC killer”, the so-called RAC (Real Address Chat) protocol. (The worst name for a protocol.)

Client sends a message consisting of a message type (single byte) and an argument, if required. Server ignores everything that comes afterwards, so the socket must be closed.

Known message types:

0. 0x30: Server stores the argument to the message log. Server does not respond with anything.

   • Message cannot be longer than 4096 bytes (including the 0x30 byte and the newline at the end). Longer messages are stripped.

1. 0x31 (argumentless): Server responds with the size of the message log in bytes as a decimal string which needs to be converted into a number. Clients are confused when it is incorrect.

2. 0x32 (argumentless): Server responds with the raw contents of the message log stripped to the size of the answer to the previous ‘1’ message.

   • Server responds with garbage to a message of this type if the client have not previously sent a ‘1’ message.