Think about backup: If every night (for example) I'd like to take a backup od downloading files, coping met files become a bit long and prone to concurrent access to these files from amule and backup tool (anyway not sure about this point).
Then, having a single text file instead of a bunch of (many?) met files, make thinkg simpler to manage.
Backup all the temp dir is out of my possibilities, since i don't have 10gb a day for backup... But, if I've half downloaded that file, i could download it again, no care of already downloaded part (even if it will takes longer to complete the file.
So, I could migrate an amule installation easier: export downloads from a machine, copy the generated file to the destination machine, import the file, start downloading.
The mysql reference, is about the output and input: export should write to stdout and import should read from stdin, only this....
Anyway, may Idea starts from the need of a regular backup of download files.
Bye