On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:49:31 -0600
Joe Peterson <lavajoe@g.o> wrote:
> > No, it doesn't make parsing faster. Had you bothered to profile
> > any package manager you'd know that.
> 
> No, I have not profiled PMs to try this, but you are saying that
> reading the first few lines of a file is not faster than sourcing the
> whole thing with bash?  Remember that it could abort the minute it
> sees a non '#' or blank line, which would be after the first few.

The package manager does not currently source the whole thing with
bash to get the EAPI, nor does it open the ebuild file at all for
metadata. You're talking doubling the number of file operations here,
and going from extremely good filesystem locality (which means very few
seeks) to jumping backwards and forwards all over the place.

This is basic stuff you really need to know before you can comment
sensibly on a discussion about package metadata.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh