| libtorrent

Author: | Arvid Norberg, arvid@libtorrent.org
Version: | 1.1.13

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# Create Torrents

Table of contents

- Create Torrents
  - create_torrent
  - add_files()
  - set_piece_hashes()

This section describes the functions and classes that are used to create torrent files. It is a layered API with low level classes and higher level convenience functions. A torrent is created in 4 steps:

1. first the files that will be part of the torrent are determined.
2. the torrent properties are set, such as tracker url, web seeds, DHT nodes etc.
3. Read through all the files in the torrent, SHA-1 all the data and set the piece hashes.
4. The torrent is bencoded into a file or buffer.

If there are a lot of files and or deep directory hierarchies to traverse, step one can be time consuming.

Typically step 3 is by far the most time consuming step, since it requires to read all the bytes from all the files in the torrent.

All of these classes and functions are declared by including `libtorrent/create_torrent.hpp`.

example:

    file_storage fs;

    // recursively adds files in directories
    add_files(fs, "./my_torrent");

    create_torrent t(fs);
    t.add_tracker("http://my.tracker.com/announce");
    t.set_creator("libtorrent example");

    // reads the files and calculates the hashes
    set_piece_hashes(t, ".");

    ofstream out("my_torrent.torrent", std::ios_base::binary);
    bencode(std::ostream_iterator<char>(out), t.generate());

## create_torrent

Declared in "libtorrent/create_torrent.hpp"

This class holds state for creating a torrent. After having added all information to it, call create_torrent::generate() to generate the torrent. The entry that's returned can then be bencoded into a .torrent file using bencode().

    struct create_torrent
    {
       create_torrent (torrent_info const& ti);
       create_torrent (torrent_info const& ti, bool use_preformatted);
       create_torrent (file_storage& fs, int piece_size = 0
          , int pad_file_limit = -1, int flags = optimize_alignment
          , int alignment = -1);
       entry generate () const;
       file_storage const& files () const;
       void set_comment (char const* str);
       void set_creator (char const* str);
       void set_hash (int index, sha1_hash const& h);
       void set_file_hash (int index, sha1_hash const& h);
       void add_url_seed (std::string const& url);
       void add_http_seed (std::string const& url);
       void add_node (std::pair<std::string, int> const& node);
       void add_tracker (std::string const& url, int tier = 0);
       void set_root_cert (std::string const& pem);
       bool priv () const;
       void set_priv (bool p);
       int num_pieces () const;
       int piece_length () const;
       int piece_size (int i) const;
       std::vector<sha1_hash> const& merkle_tree () const;
       void add_similar_torrent (sha1_hash ih);
       void add_collection (std::string c);

       enum flags_t
       {
          optimize_alignment,
          merkle,
          modification_time,
          symlinks,
          mutable_torrent_support,
       };
    };

### create_torrent()

    create_torrent (torrent_info const& ti);
    create_torrent (torrent_info const& ti, bool use_preformatted);
    create_torrent (file_storage& fs, int piece_size = 0
          , int pad_file_limit = -1, int flags = optimize_alignment
          , int alignment = -1);

The `piece_size` is the size of each piece in bytes. It must be a multiple of 16 kiB. If a piece size of 0 is specified, a piece_size will be calculated such that the torrent file is roughly 40 kB.

If a `pad_file_limit` is specified (other than -1), any file larger than the specified number of bytes will be preceded by a pad file to align it with the start of a piece. The pad_file_limit is ignored unless the `optimize_alignment` flag is passed. Typically it doesn't make sense to set this any lower than 4 kiB.

The overload that takes a `torrent_info` object will make a verbatim copy of its info dictionary (to preserve the info-hash). The copy of the info dictionary will be used by create_torrent::generate(). This means that none of the member functions of create_torrent that affects the content of the info dictionary (such as `set_hash()`), will have any affect.

The `flags` arguments specifies options for the torrent creation. It can be any combination of the flags defined by create_torrent::flags_t.

`alignment` is used when pad files are enabled. This is the size eligible files are aligned to. The default is -1, which means the piece size of the torrent. The `use_preformatted` parameter can be set to true to preserve invalid encoding of the .torrent file.

### generate()

    entry generate () const;

This function will generate the .torrent file as a bencode tree. In order to generate the flat file, use the bencode() function.

It may be useful to add custom entries to the torrent file before bencoding it and saving it to disk.

If anything goes wrong during torrent generation, this function will return an empty `entry` structure. You can test for this condition by querying the type of the entry:

    file_storage fs;
    // add file ...
    create_torrent t(fs);
    // add trackers and piece hashes ...
    e = t.generate();

    if (e.type() == entry::undefined_t)
    {
            // something went wrong
    }

For instance, you cannot generate a torrent with 0 files in it. If you don't add any files to the `file_storage`, torrent generation will fail.

### files()

    file_storage const& files () const;

returns an immutable reference to the file_storage used to create the torrent from.

### set_comment()

    void set_comment (char const* str);

Sets the comment for the torrent. The string `str` should be utf-8 encoded. The comment in a torrent file is optional.

### set_creator()

    void set_creator (char const* str);

Sets the creator of the torrent. The string `str` should be utf-8 encoded. This is optional.

### set_hash()

    void set_hash (int index, sha1_hash const& h);

This sets the SHA-1 hash for the specified piece (`index`). You are required to set the hash for every piece in the torrent before generating it. If you have the files on disk, you can use the high level convenience function to do this. See set_piece_hashes().

### set_file_hash()

    void set_file_hash (int index, sha1_hash const& h);

This sets the sha1 hash for this file. This hash will end up under the key `sha1` associated with this file (for multi-file torrents) or in the root info dictionary for single-file torrents.

### add_url_seed() add_http_seed()

    void add_url_seed (std::string const& url);
    void add_http_seed (std::string const& url);

This adds a url seed to the torrent. You can have any number of url seeds. For a single file torrent, this should be an HTTP url, pointing to a file with identical content as the file of the torrent. For a multi-file torrent, it should point to a directory containing a directory with the same name as this torrent, and all the files of the torrent in it.

The second function, `add_http_seed()` adds an HTTP seed instead.

### add_node()

    void add_node (std::pair<std::string, int> const& node);

This adds a DHT node to the torrent. This especially useful if you're creating a tracker less torrent. It can be used by clients to bootstrap their DHT node from. The node is a hostname and a port number where there is a DHT node running. You can have any number of DHT nodes in a torrent.

### add_tracker()

    void add_tracker (std::string const& url, int tier = 0);

Adds a tracker to the torrent. This is not strictly required, but most torrents use a tracker as their main source of peers. The url should be an http:// or udp:// url to a machine running a bittorrent tracker that accepts announces for this torrent's info-hash. The tier is the fallback priority of the tracker. All trackers with tier 0 are tried first (in any order). If all fail, trackers with tier 1 are tried. If all of those fail, trackers with tier 2 are tried, and so on.

### set_root_cert()

    void set_root_cert (std::string const& pem);

This function sets an X.509 certificate in PEM format to the torrent. This makes the torrent an SSL torrent. An SSL torrent requires that each peer has a valid certificate signed by this root certificate. For SSL torrents, all peers are connecting over SSL connections. For more information, see the section on ssl torrents.

The string is not the path to the cert, it's the actual content of the certificate, loaded into a std::string.

### priv() set_priv()

    bool priv () const;
    void set_priv (bool p);

Sets and queries the private flag of the torrent. Torrents with the private flag set ask clients to not use any other sources than the tracker for peers, and to not advertise itself publicly, apart from the tracker.

### num_pieces()

    int num_pieces () const;

returns the number of pieces in the associated file_storage object.

### piece_length() piece_size()

    int piece_length () const;
    int piece_size (int i) const;

`piece_length()` returns the piece size of all pieces but the last one. `piece_size()` returns the size of the specified piece. these functions are just forwarding to the associated file_storage.

### merkle_tree()

    std::vector<sha1_hash> const& merkle_tree () const;

This function returns the merkle hash tree, if the torrent was created as a merkle torrent. The tree is created by `generate()` and won't be valid until that function has been called. When creating a merkle tree torrent, the actual tree itself has to be saved off separately and fed into libtorrent the first time you start seeding it, through the `torrent_info::set_merkle_tree()` function. From that point onwards, the tree will be saved in the resume data.

### add_collection() add_similar_torrent()

    void add_similar_torrent (sha1_hash ih);
    void add_collection (std::string c);

Add similar torrents (by info-hash) or collections of similar torrents. Similar torrents are expected to share some files with this torrent. Torrents sharing a collection name with this torrent are also expected to share files with this torrent. A torrent may have more than one collection and more than one similar torrents. For more information, see BEP 38.

### enum flags_t

Declared in "libtorrent/create_torrent.hpp"

name | value | description
--- | --- | ---
optimize_alignment | 1 | This will insert pad files to align the files to piece boundaries, for optimized disk-I/O. This will minimize the number of bytes of pad- files, to keep the impact down for clients that don't support them.

merkle

2

This will create a merkle hash tree torrent. A merkle torrent cannot be opened in clients that don't specifically support merkle torrents. The benefit is that the resulting torrent file will be much smaller and not grow with more pieces. When this option is specified, it is recommended to have a fairly small piece size, say 64 kiB. When creating merkle torrents, the full hash tree is also generated and should be saved off separately. It is accessed through the create_torrent::merkle_tree() function.

modification_time | 4 | This will include the file modification time as part of the torrent. This is not enabled by default, as it might cause problems when you create a torrent from separate files with the same content, hoping to yield the same info-hash. If the files have different modification times, with this option enabled, you would get different info-hashes for the files.
symlinks | 8 | If this flag is set, files that are symlinks get a symlink attribute set on them and their data will not be included in the torrent. This is useful if you need to reconstruct a file hierarchy which contains symlinks.
mutable_torrent_support | 16 | to create a torrent that can be updated via a mutable torrent (see BEP 38). This also needs to be enabled for torrents that update another torrent.

## add_files()

Declared in "libtorrent/create_torrent.hpp"

    void add_files (file_storage& fs, std::string const& file
       , boost::function<bool(std::string)> p, boost::uint32_t flags = 0);
    void add_files (file_storage& fs, std::string const& file
       , boost::uint32_t flags = 0);

Adds the file specified by `path` to the file_storage object. In case `path` refers to a directory, files will be added recursively from the directory.

If specified, the predicate `p` is called once for every file and directory that is encountered. Files for which `p` returns true are added, and directories for which `p` returns true are traversed. `p` must have the following signature:

    bool Pred(std::string const& p);

The path that is passed in to the predicate is the full path of the file or directory. If no predicate is specified, all files are added, and all directories are traversed.

The ".." directory is never traversed.

The `flags` argument should be the same as the flags passed to the create_torrent constructor.

## set_piece_hashes()

Declared in "libtorrent/create_torrent.hpp"

    void set_piece_hashes (create_torrent& t, std::string const& p
       , boost::function<void(int)> const& f, error_code& ec);
    inline void set_piece_hashes (create_torrent& t, std::string const& p);
    inline void set_piece_hashes (create_torrent& t, std::string const& p, error_code& ec);

This function will assume that the files added to the torrent file exists at path `p`, read those files and hash the content and set the hashes in the `create_torrent` object. The optional function `f` is called in between every hash that is set. `f` must have the following signature:

    void Fun(int);

The overloads that don't take an `error_code&` may throw an exception in case of a file error, the other overloads sets the error code to reflect the error, if any.