In Conclusion, I’m dumb.
The IRC library turned my mess into exactly what I wanted (JSON that can be parsed for data). Thank you so much for your help and insight and sorry I asked such a silly question.
Snippet from my code:
def on_pubmsg(self, c, e):
# If a chat message starts with an exclamation point, try to run it as a command
if e.arguments[0][:1] == '!':
cmd = e.arguments[0].split(' ')[0][1:]
print('Received command: ' + cmd)
self.do_command(e, cmd)
# If it is any other chat message, print the username and message to the console
else:
# Get message
message = e.arguments[0]
# Get Username from tags
username = e.tags[2]['value']
print(username + ': ' + message)
return