add first draft of meta.dat

2 files changed, 61 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/diy-dat.md b/diy-dat.md
index 77a644d..f95eb11 100644
--- a/diy-dat.md
+++ b/diy-dat.md
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ var Level = require('level')
 // the dat link someone sent us, we want to download the data from it
 var link = new Buffer(process.argv[2], 'hex')
 
-// here are the default config dat uses:
+// here is the default config dat uses
 // used for MDNS and also as the dns 'app name', you prob shouldnt change this
 var DAT_DOMAIN = 'dat.local'
 // dat will try this first and pick the first open port if its taken
diff --git a/meta.dat.md b/meta.dat.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7cc8db6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/meta.dat.md
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+# meta.dat
+
+Dat uses a simple metadata file called `meta.dat`. The purpose of this file is to store the fingerprints of the files in a Dat repository. If you create a `meta.dat` file for a set of files, you can host it on a static HTTP server along with the files and Dat clients will be able to download and verify your files, even if you aren't running a Dat server!
+
+# File format
+
+```
+<Header><Entries...>
+```
+
+The format is a header followed by many entries. Entry order is based on the indexing determined by the [Flat In-Order Tree](hyperdrive.md#flat-in-order-trees) algorithm we use in Dat.
+
+For example, given a tree like this you might want to look up in a `meta.dat` file the metadata for a specific node:
+
+```
+0─┐  
+  1─┐
+2─┘ │
+    3
+4─┐ │
+  5─┘
+6─┘
+```
+
+If you wanted to look up the metadata for 3, you could read the third (or any!) entry from meta.dat with the following formula (assuming you've already decoded the header and hash lengths from the beginning of the file):
+
+```
+header-length + entry-number * (8 + hash-length)
+```
+
+### Header format
+
+```
+<varint header-length><header protobuf>
+```
+
+The header protobuf has this schema:
+
+``` proto
+message Header {
+  dat link
+  is-signed-feed
+  hash-type
+  hash-length
+}
+```
+
+### Entry format
+
+For non-signed entries:
+
+```
+<8-byte-chunk-offset><chunk-hash>
+```
+
+For signed entries (in live feeds):
+
+```
+<8-byte-chunk-offset><64-byte-signature><chunk-hash>
+```