I've written my own javascript bencode library and I still can't generate torrent info hashes?

Question

I've searched everywhere looking for a working JavaScript Bencode module and couldn't find one so I decided to write my own for the purpose of generating torrent info hashes.

The module works to the best of my knowledge as I wrote the functions to the specification.

Dictionary => Objects => Key/value pairs

List => Array Objects => number/value pairs

Integers => Number Objects

Strings...

Anyway, I decode the torrent file's data and then encode the decoded info key's value, next I use a SHA-1 module by Google API and the info hash never matches the original. I'm dumb founded.

I've tested my module thoroughly. I can decode the data pass it to my encode function and its and exact match to the original data but when I try to generate the hash from the encoded info section value I get a mismatch.

I do believe this is due to JavaScript's poor binary string handling and I have no idea how to diagnose or resolve this issue.

When I output the data from a get request depending on the content-type header the binary portion of the string displays differently and is the reason I've come to this conclusion.

I understand that the torrent file is UTF-8 character encoded but after that I'm helpless...

Thanks for any help in advance.

Answer 1

The torrent file is UTF-8 character encoded but parts of it are not. The "pieces" key in the info dictionary is strictly ASCII encoded, retrieving it as UTF-8 causes errors for me with [C] and will probably do the same to you with JavaScript.