Is there a tool to view a torrent file?

Question

I am interested in rendering a torrent file into a readable form (to see what files does it reference, what tracker information does it contain etc.). What a tool can I use to do just this?

Answer 1

btshowmetainfo, formerly included in the BitTorrent distribution but now largely installed with BitTornado (a fork of the BitTorrent 3.x codebase), does just that.

$ btshowmetainfo amd64cd-5.1.2.iso.torrent 
btshowmetainfo 20030621 - decode BitTorrent metainfo files

metainfo file.: amd64cd-5.1.2.iso.torrent
info hash.....: e30c05f2330ba4869eefb90bf5978a505303b235
file name.....: amd64cd-5.1.2.iso
file size.....: 253325312 (966 * 262144 + 94208)
announce url..: http://tracker.netbsd.org:6969/announce

Answer 2

You can use transmission-show, included in the Gnome Transmission BitTorrent client.

$ transmission-show amd64cd-5.1.2.iso.torrent
Name: amd64cd-5.1.2.iso
File: amd64cd-5.1.2.iso.torrent

GENERAL

  Name: amd64cd-5.1.2.iso
  Hash: e30c05f2330ba4869eefb90bf5978a505303b235
  Created by: 
  Created on: Sun Feb  5 01:31:29 2012
  Piece Count: 967
  Piece Size: 256.0 KiB
  Total Size: 253.3 MB
  Privacy: Public torrent

TRACKERS

  Tier #1
  http://tracker.netbsd.org:6969/announce

FILES

  amd64cd-5.1.2.iso (253.3 MB)

If you're using an older version of Transmission, you can use the older transmissioncli --info command:

$ transmissioncli --info amd64cd-5.1.2.iso.torrent
Transmission 2.03 (11030) - http://www.transmissionbt.com/
hash:   e30c05f2330ba4869eefb90bf5978a505303b235
name:   amd64cd-5.1.2.iso

tracker tier #1:
        announce:       http://tracker.netbsd.org:6969/announce
size:   253325312 (966 * 262144 + 94208)
file(s):
        amd64cd-5.1.2.iso (253325312)

Answer 3

lstor, including the ability to calculate the hash, which can be quite useful in shell scripts:

$ lstor Chakra\ 2012.02\ Archimedes\ x86.torrent -qo __hash__
B3472076574BC666396766AB3B28C0054D740B46

$ lstor Chakra\ 2012.02\ Archimedes\ x86.torrent -q
NAME Chakra 2012.02 Archimedes x86.torrent
SIZE 1.4 GiB (1461 * 1.0 MiB + 0 bytes)
HASH B3472076574BC666396766AB3B28C0054D740B46
URL  http://linuxtracker.org:2710/********************************/announce
PRV  YES (DHT/PEX disabled)
TIME 2012-02-13 17:10:28
BY   qBittorrent v2.9.3

FILE LISTING
chakra-2012.02-Archimedes-i686.iso                                      1.4 GiB

$ lstor Chakra\ 2012.02\ Archimedes\ x86.torrent -q --raw
{'announce': 'http://linuxtracker.org:2710/********************************/announce',
 'created by': 'qBittorrent v2.9.3',
 'creation date': 1329149428,
 'info': {'length': 1531969536,
          'name': 'chakra-2012.02-Archimedes-i686.iso',
          'piece length': 1048576,
          'pieces': '<1461 piece hashes>',
          'private': 1},
 'url-list': ''}