Index: DefaultSettings.php
===================================================================
--- DefaultSettings.php	(revision 35481)
+++ DefaultSettings.php	(working copy)
@@ -1934,6 +1934,8 @@
 $wgRC2UDPAddress = false;
 $wgRC2UDPPort = false;
 $wgRC2UDPPrefix = '';
+# Format of the IRC messages: Empty = standard color-code separated, "PHP" = using serialize()
+$wgIRCFormat = '';
 
 # Enable user search in Special:Newpages
 # This is really a temporary hack around an index install bug on some Wikipedias.
Index: RecentChange.php
===================================================================
--- RecentChange.php	(revision 35481)
+++ RecentChange.php	(working copy)
@@ -559,7 +559,7 @@
 
 	function getIRCLine() {
 		global $wgUseRCPatrol;
-
+		global $wgIRCFormat;
 		// FIXME: Would be good to replace these 2 extract() calls with something more explicit
 		// e.g. list ($rc_type, $rc_id) = array_values ($this->mAttribs); [or something like that]
 		extract($this->mAttribs);
@@ -608,10 +608,20 @@
 			$comment = $this->cleanupForIRC( $rc_comment );
 			$flag = ($rc_new ? "N" : "") . ($rc_minor ? "M" : "") . ($rc_bot ? "B" : "");
 		}
-		# see http://www.irssi.org/documentation/formats for some colour codes. prefix is \003,
-		# no colour (\003) switches back to the term default
-		$fullString = "\00314[[\00307$title\00314]]\0034 $flag\00310 " .
-		              "\00302$url\003 \0035*\003 \00303$user\003 \0035*\003 $szdiff \00310$comment\003\n";
+		switch( $wgIRCFormat ) {
+			case "PHP":
+				#we use serialize() format here, to make the IRC output way better machine-readable
+				$ircline = array(	"url" => $url, "title" => $title,
+									"summary" => $summary, "flags" => $flag,
+									"user" => $user, "sizediff" => $szdiff
+				);
+				$fullString=serialize($ircline);
+			default:
+				# see http://www.irssi.org/documentation/formats for some colour codes. prefix is \003,
+				# no colour (\003) switches back to the term default
+				$fullString = "\00314[[\00307$title\00314]]\0034 $flag\00310 " .
+				              "\00302$url\003 \0035*\003 \00303$user\003 \0035*\003 $szdiff \00310$comment\003\n";
+		}
 		return $fullString;
 	}