fileview
fileview is a small command-line diagnostic tool that dumps the decoded contents of aMule's binary data files to standard output. It is the practical companion to the format references on these pages: where the other File Formats pages document the byte layout of each file, fileview is what you run to actually decode and inspect a real file against that layout.
It is read-only — it never modifies the files it reads — which makes it safe to point at a live ~/.aMule/ directory while debugging.
Building
fileview is experimental and not built by default. Enable it explicitly with the BUILD_FILEVIEW CMake option (or implicitly via BUILD_EVERYTHING):
cmake -B build -DBUILD_FILEVIEW=ON
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"
The resulting fileview binary is placed in build/ and installed to bin/ on cmake --install. See the Compilation guides for the full build setup.
Usage
fileview [options] <input file>...
It decides how to decode each file from its base name (e.g. server.met, nodes.dat), so the path may point anywhere — typically inside ~/.aMule/. One or more files can be passed at once; each is decoded in turn.
# Decode a single file
fileview ~/.aMule/server.met
# Decode several files in one run
fileview ~/.aMule/nodes.dat ~/.aMule/clients.met
Options
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
-h, --help | Show usage and exit. |
-v, --version | Show the program version and exit. |
-s, --strings <mode> | How to decode string fields. display (default), safe, utf8, or none. |
The --strings mode controls how text fields (file names, nicknames, server descriptions, …) are rendered: display decodes them for human reading, safe escapes non-printable characters, utf8 forces UTF-8 interpretation, and none leaves the raw bytes untouched.
Supported files
fileview recognizes the following files. Each links to its on-disk format reference:
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
server.met | eD2k server list |
nodes.dat | Kademlia bootstrap contacts |
clients.met | Credit ledger for known clients |
emfriends.met | Friends list |
*.part.met | Metadata of an in-progress download |
preferences.dat | Config version and userhash |
preferencesKad.dat | Client IP and Kademlia ClientID |
known.met | Cached metadata of shared files |
canceled.met | Hashes of cancelled downloads |
statistics.dat | Lifetime upload/download totals |
key_index.dat, src_index.dat, load_index.dat | Kademlia index data published by this node |
Passing any other file prints an error — fileview does not attempt to guess the format of unknown files.