thanks stoepsel and jackspratts for the info that clears things up considerably. i hope you don't mind a few more questions.
is the information contained in the dat file sourced from the hash or from the file? is the dat file created by say kazaa lite when i click on the file for download or is it read from somewhere else?
if i create a file and offer it in my shared directory and do not use sig2dat, k-sig, or something to create a hash, how is a signature created?
as you can probably deduce from my questions, it is some of the basic underlying concepts that i am missing.
thanks for the help.