• flyingferret lives on irc.foonetic.net in #xkcd and #flyingferret.
• When addressing flyingferret, you can abbreviate it to ferret and use either a colon or a comma.
• You can use any of these commands in a PM and do not need to address flyingferret when doing so.
• To avoid spam, flyingferret will say nothing if it has no response to a query.
• flyingferret is maintained by relsqui@chiliahedron.com (but a PM on foonetic works at least as well).
• Hosting and other assistance are provided by zigdon. Thanks, zigdon!

• ferret, apples or oranges chooses for you.
• flyingferret: can ferrets fly? answers with yes or no (usually).
• Anything directed at ferret which doesn't match the above will search comic transcripts.
• xkcd://20 anywhere in a line yields the full title and link to strip #20.
• xkcd://ferret anywhere in a line yields the full titles and links to strips with "ferret" in the title.
• xkcd://current anywhere in a line yields the full title and link to the current strip.
• wiki://article_title anywhere in a line yields a full URL if such a Wikipedia article exists.
• alpha://query anywhere in a line yields a full URL to Wolfram Alpha
• alpha://multi word query at the beginning of the line yields a full URL to Wolfram Alpha with multiple words
• trope://CaseSensitiveQuery anywhere in a line yields a full URL to TVTropes
• qdb://5 anywhere in a line yields a full xkcdb URL.
• /me rolls 2d6+1 rolls two six-sided dice, adds one, and gives the results.

flyingferret can search the archive of currently transcribed xkcd strips for a given string. To search for a text string, address flyingferret and tell him the string to search for. (flyingferret will only assume a string is a transcript search if it is not a question or a choice; see below.) flyingferret will provide context so you can pick the right strip from multiple matches. When there are more than five string matches but fewer than five perfect word matches, flyingferret will return the latter; if there are more than five string matches but either zero or more than five perfect matches, flyingferret will only give the number of matches.

	< relsqui> flyingferret: dinosaur
	< flyingferret> Just Alerting You: http://www.xkcd.com/c15.html ("...the back of a green 
			      dinosaur, holding its reins...")

	< relsqui> flyingferret: e
	< flyingferret> e to the pi times i: http://xkcd.com/179 ("...e to the pi times i: [[Teacher is
			      ...") - e to the pi Minus pi: http://xkcd.com/217 ("...e to the pi Minus pi:
			      Person ...")

	< relsqui> flyingferret: sh
	< flyingferret> Found 0 perfect matches, 132 total. Be more specific.
		

You can use flyingferret to get the URL and title of a specific xkcd strip with the syntax xkcd://something. If something is entirely numeric and the number of an existing xkcd strip, flyingferret will respond with the title and URL of that strip.

If something is not completely numeric, flyingferret will look for it in all strip titles. If it finds any but less than five whole word matches, it will respond with the complete titles and links to the matching strips. In all other cases it behaves as above with regard to number of results displayed.

Finally, if something is the word "current," flyingferret will give the title and URL of the most recent xkcd strip. Its list of strips updates approximately one minute after a new comic posts.

	< relsqui> xkcd://20
	< flyingferret> Ferret (http://www.xkcd.com/c20.html)

	< relsqui> I can refer to xkcd://pi in a sentence.
	< flyingferret> Pi Equals (http://www.xkcd.com/c10.html) - e to the pi times i (http://www.xkcd.com/c179.html) -
			e to the pi Minus pi (http://www.xkcd.com/c217.html)

	< relsqui> xkcd://the
	< flyingferret> Found 16 perfect matches and 4 imperfect. Be more specific.
		

Much like the above, you can use wiki://something to get a complete link to a Wikipedia page. flyingferret does not search all of Wikipedia for any page title matching something; if there is no article with that exact title, it will not respond. (As in a normal Wikipedia URL but unlike the above, you can use underscores for spaces.)

	<@relsqui> I can refer to wiki://flying_squirrel in a sentence.
	< flyingferret> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/flying_squirrel
		

This is almost exactly the same as Wikipedia lookup, with one exception: when the query appears in the middle of a line, flyingferret will assume the query is a single word. (If it's not, you can use plus signs for spaces.) If the alpha query is at the beginning of the line, flyingferret will assume that the query is the rest of the line.

	<@relsqui> so you can use alpha://single word queries in the middle of a line, or do this:
	< flyingferret> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=single
	<@relsqui> alpha://apples vs. oranges
	< flyingferret> http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apples+vs.+oranges
		

Like the above. The name of the trope is case sensitive because TV Tropes's URLs are (it's not fixable on the ferret's end) and is assumed to end at a space.

	<@relsqui> trope://americanaccent
	<@relsqui> trope://AmericanAccent
	< flyingferret> http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmericanAccent
		

Last and really least of the lookups, flyingferret can expand xkcdb://5 or qdb://5 into a full link to the #xkcd quote database. The same syntax with a word instead of a number will return a link to the search page for that query.

	< relsqui> qdb://5
	< flyingferret> http://www.xkcdb.com/?5
	< Selig> xkcdb://Bucket
	< flyingferret> http://www.xkcdb.com/?search=Bucket
		

You can roll dice in channel with /me rolls XdY, where X and Y are decimal integers, and flyingferret will give the individual and total results. The dice quantity is limited at ten to avoid spam. Only natural numbers and sizes of dice and integer modifiers are supported.

	 * relsqui rolls 8d5+3
	< flyingferret> relsqui got: 5, 1, 5, 3, 5, 4, 1, 3, for a total of 27+3=30.
		

If you can't be bothered to assign numbers to two choices and roll dice, you can tell flyingferret to choose between two options. You may optionally include the keyword choose, a question mark, or both.

	<@relsqui> flyingferret: apples or oranges?
	< flyingferret> oranges

	<@relsqui> flyingferret: choose apples or oranges
	< flyingferret> apples
		

flyingferret will answer yes or no questions, albeit not always conclusively. It's easy to accidentally invoke its decision-making mode; avoid this by not using the word "or" in your question.

	<@relsqui> ferret, can ferrets fly?
	< flyingferret> Yes, absolutely.