Re: XML Torrents?

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:18:16 +0000 (GMT), Justin Cormack <[email protected]> wrote:

> For many purposes it would be very useful to have a text format (eg to
> send a torrent by email). However it is required that there is a unique
> representation of the info portion of the torrent file so that the info
> hash can be generated (hence the rules about ordering of fields in bencoding).
> XML doesnt give you a fixed representation, so you still need some canonical
> form.

XML, or more specifically a DTD for XML, should give you a canocial
representation. There's some fields with names and values with some sort
of structure, thats what both XML and beencoding are all about.

> You could make an XML form where the info part in bencoded form could be
> uniquely regenerated to generate/verify the hash.

We'd have to encode it in Base64, thats all.
The nice things about XML is that we can make it as bloated as we want.
The worst I can think of is
<pieces>
   <piece>MDEyMzQ1Njc4OTAxMjM0NTY3ODk=</piece>
   <piece>YWtsc2pkb2l3amhlbmE4OTIxM2Y=</piece>
   [...]
</pieces>

HTH :)
Kosta


 
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