Originally Posted By: Khaled
If I recall correctly, at one time mIRC did store more than [ten] characters for the user string, however due to bug reports relating to that behaviour mIRC was changed to comply with the maximum length. I can't remember the reason for the original bug report unfortunately apart from the fact that there were side-effects on some IRC networks when the maximum length was not enforced.

Most probably the issue was ban masks. Many server implementations limit the username part of ban masks to the username length. For example: if you attempt to ban *!*1234567890@* on a server with USERLEN=10, the ircd may set the ban *!*123456789@* instead. This is why it is essential to keep enforcing the correct limit, and instead ban *!*234567890@* on such networks. That affects the way $mask (etc) work, and requires knowledge of the ircd's USERLEN setting. Unfortunately, it does not seem that USERLEN is generally reported as part of RPL_ISUPPORT..


Saturn, QuakeNet staff