Would there be interest in a "torrent collection" file?

[MaruTheAlmighty]

.torrent files contain information on how to find a single torrent, but I'm wondering if there would be any interest in writing a form of "torrent collection" file?

What the file would do is include a series of links to multiple torrents (such as links to individual tv show episode torrents) which would be an alternative to providing season packs - as instead of having to upload a torrent containing multiple files you can upload individual torrents to each file and provide a collection list that links to each individual torrent. So if a file turns out to be corrupted or obsolete, instead of having to upload a v2 collection you would just need to upload the corrected file then a new collection list that links to the new file. Or you could provide a collection list that links to a collection torrent but skips the bad files and downloads replacements instead. Bonus if the list could identify the contents of each torrent and flag what to download and what to skep, and can rename the downloaded files and move them into different folders within a root collection folder. 

Is that something that could be interesting?

So like a minimum file could just contain magnet links and a label for each link, and an advanced one could identify which files to skip downloading and rename and move files

---

File examples:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<torrentlist>
  <title lang="en">Breaking Bad Season 24</title>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad Season 24 720p.BRrip.HDTV.OmegaRips</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5628...announce</magnet>
    <file action="skip">
       <filename>Breaking.Bad.S24E32.720p.BRrip.HDTV.RWN.mkv</filename>
    </file>
  </torrent>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad S24E32 720p HDTV [SuperRip]</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2542...announce</magnet>
    <file action="rename">
       <filename>Breaking Bad 24x32 720p HDTV [SuperRip].mkv</filename>
       <newname>Breaking.Bad.S24E32.720p.BRrip.HDTV.SuperRip.mkv</newname>
    </file>
  </torrent>
</torrentlist>

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<torrentlist>
  <title lang="en">Breaking Bad Season 23</title>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad S24E01 720p HDTV [SuperRip]</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3342...announce</magnet>
  </torrent>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad S24E02 720p HDTV [SuperRip]</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:1432...announce</magnet>
  </torrent>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad S24E03 720p HDTV [SuperRip]</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:2345...announce</magnet>
  </torrent>
  <torrent>
    <title lang="en">Breaking Bad S24E04 720p HDTV [SuperRip]</title>
    <magnet>magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5223...announce</magnet>
  </torrent>
</torrentlist>

[dueda]

Did you check this? BEP - BitTorrent Extension Proposal list  Also look around TorrentFreak

In the past there was some talk about hierarchical torrents, how to extend/update torrents, to look for similar torrents to find missing pieces, even using blockchain.
But in the best case, changes take years to be adopted. Some people just make their own new protocol and network.

Biggest problem is the torrent file being associated to a hash, any changes would require re-hashing, thus changing the torrent's unique ID code. You change a torrent, it can no longer be found or related to the original. 
Such a change would break the entire system and maybe fixing apps, sites and services for a new protocol may be too disruptive for most of the active developers and operators - If they can come to consensus.

[MaruTheAlmighty]

Did you check this? BEP - BitTorrent Extension Proposal list  Also look around TorrentFreak

In the past there was some talk about hierarchical torrents, how to extend/update torrents, to look for similar torrents to find missing pieces, even using blockchain.
But in the best case, changes take years to be adopted. Some people just make their own new protocol and network.

Biggest problem is the torrent file being associated to a hash, any changes would require re-hashing, thus changing the torrent's unique ID code. You change a torrent, it can no longer be found or related to the original. 
Such a change would break the entire system and maybe fixing apps, sites and services for a new protocol may be too disruptive for most of the active developers and operators - If they can come to consensus.

I feel a little skeeved about the torrents themselves changing - it could lead to half-forgotten torrents being replaced by malware if implemented badly

With this collection file system, even a simple script can output a block of text you enter into your favorite torrent application followed by some short instructions of what files to manually set to skip download on.
A full program could integrate directly with your torrent app and handle all the skip downloads and file moving/renaming, or it could be implemented as a third-party plugin

such a tool can be easily added on to the existing system without drastic changes that may impair security or stability.

[dueda]

...such a tool can be easily added on to the existing system without drastic changes...

In theory, yes, and some torrent clients are plug-in-friendly. But the protocol is not, any torrent-related app (clients, indexers, etc) would treat it as an error. So you would need a "section" in the torrent to describe what would be an "optional data" for standard apps. Don't know how that would be done.

The code you showed is not in meta-files format; either it's just a pseudo-code example, or maybe you're planning on adding a hypertext-style script file amidst the actual torrent content, which seems to me far from ideal. Anyway, I'm helpless about that level of stuff.

[MaruTheAlmighty]

...such a tool can be easily added on to the existing system without drastic changes...

In theory, yes, and some torrent clients are plug-in-friendly. But the protocol is not, any torrent-related app (clients, indexers, etc) would treat it as an error. So you would need a "section" in the torrent to describe what would be an "optional data" for standard apps. Don't know how that would be done.

The code you showed is not in meta-files format; either it's just a pseudo-code example, or maybe you're planning on adding a hypertext-style script file amidst the actual torrent content, which seems to me far from ideal. Anyway, I'm helpless about that level of stuff.

this file would just use normal torrents, like you could make them using existing torrents? there is no changes that need to be added to the protocol, and the bittorent client itself like qbittorrent itself can be used without any plugins or patches or updates to support this if you're using a different app to managed the files. Automators like Sonarr can identify tv episodes as soon as they are out and push them to the bittorent app to handle the download, then sonarr will move and rename the files once the download is complete. An automator would read the torrent file (like the XML COMPLIANT examples I provided) and send to qbittorrent all of the requested downloads, and rearrange the files as requested. The automator may not be able to tell qbittorrent to skip downloading specific files, but a plugin in qbittorrent could

[dueda]

If I got it right, it's a two layer process:
- On top there's a XML file with hierarchic description of the torrents the group (series) would need, and it would be handled by a new app;
- Under it there would be a torrent client app to receive the actual torrent meta-file and execute the transport;

Then, how will you distribute that "wrapping" file? Since you won't add it's handling to the protocol, there's need to do it out of the torrent ecosystem.
Note that .torrent files aren't xml, so your file can be anything you want. Just indented text would do.

[MaruTheAlmighty]

Here's an example:

Bob listed a torrent for seasons one, two, and three of a show in a high quality format, but two season one episodes are corrupted
Larry listed torrents for season four of the show, but as individual torrents for each show and none of them have season and episode numbers, only the episode title.
Martha listed torrents for the two season one episodes that Bob's torrent had corrupted.

Edward creates a "torrent collection" which tells the torrent client to download all of Bob, Larry, and Martha's listed torrents for the shows, except skipping the two corrupted files in Bob's torrent. When the downloads are done it tells the torrent client to rename Larry's episodes so that they have season and episode numbers, and arranges all the torrents into an organised directory.