Working with TORRENT files

In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or METAINFO is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms. A torrent file does not contain the content to be distributed; it only contains information about those files, such as their names, sizes, folder structure, and cryptographic hash values for verifying file integrity. 

Note
For more information on torrent files please refer to this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_file

Reading TORRENT file metadata

To get TORRENT file metadata, the following steps are needed to be followed:

  1. Load a TORRENT file
  2. Get the root metadata package
  3. Extract  the native metadata package using the TorrentRootPackage.getTorrentPackage method
  4. Read the TORRENT file properties

advanced_usage.managing_metadata_for_specific_formats.peer2peer.TorrentReadNativeMetadataProperties

try (Metadata metadata = new Metadata(Constants.InputTorrent)) {
	TorrentRootPackage root = metadata.getRootPackageGeneric();

	System.out.println(root.getTorrentPackage().getAnnounce());
	System.out.println(root.getTorrentPackage().getComment());
	System.out.println(root.getTorrentPackage().getCreatedBy());
	System.out.println(root.getTorrentPackage().getCreationDate());

	for (TorrentSharedFilePackage file : root.getTorrentPackage().getSharedFiles()) {
		System.out.println(file.getName());
		System.out.println(file.getLength());
	}
	// ...
}

Updating TORRENT file metadata

The GroupDocs.Metadata API also supports updating some metadata properties of a TORRENT file. Please see the code snippet below to learn how to do that.

advanced_usage.managing_metadata_for_specific_formats.peer2peer.TorrentReadNativeMetadataProperties

try (Metadata metadata = new Metadata(Constants.InputTorrent)) {
	TorrentRootPackage root = metadata.getRootPackageGeneric();

	root.getTorrentPackage().setComment("test comment");
	root.getTorrentPackage().setCreatedBy("GroupDocs.Metadata");
	root.getTorrentPackage().setCreationDate(new Date());

	metadata.save(Constants.OutputTorrent);
}

More resources

GitHub examples

You may easily run the code above and see the feature in action in our GitHub examples:

Free online document metadata management App

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