Shell Reply to IRC PING with PONG in bash script

Code
#!/bin/bash



function ircpreamble {

echo "NICK ${1}"

}



function privmsg {

TARGET=$1

sed -re "s/^(.*)\$/PRIVMSG ${TARGET} :\1/"

}



function delay {

while read LINE; do

sleep 2

echo $LINE

done

}



function messages {

msg=`cat pmmsg.txt`

echo $msg

}



function disconnect {

echo "QUIT goodbye :)"

}





(   

nick=`cat randnick.txt`

pms=`cat pmnickname.txt`

ircpreamble "$nick";

messages | privmsg "$pms";

disconnect;

) | delay | nc irc.seersirc.net 6667