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Hi, |
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|
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As we all know, emerge --search/--searchdesc actions are embarrassingly |
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slow (from most users' perspectives, anyway), especially in comparison |
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to external tools like eix and esearch. |
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|
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Wouldn't it be nice if the performance of emerge's search functionality |
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was more competitive with other offerings? Then, external search tools |
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might not be seen as an absolute necessity. |
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|
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In order to solve this problem, I suggest that we add support for a |
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package description index file format. For example, the attached script |
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will generate a suitable index formatted as series of lines like this: |
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|
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sys-apps/sandbox-1.6-r2,2.3-r1,2.4,2.5,2.6-r1: sandbox'd LD_PRELOAD hack |
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|
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Using this format, the index file for the entire gentoo-x86 repository |
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consumes approximately 1.5 MB. The whole file can be quickly searched as |
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a stream (the whole file need not be in memory at once), yielding emerge |
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--search/--searchdesc performance that will be competitive with |
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app-portage/esearch. |
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|
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The index can either be generated on the server side by egencache, or on |
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the client side by a post emerge --sync hook. It makes sense to support |
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both modes of operation, so that server side generation is purely optional. |
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|
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What do others think about this proposal? |
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-- |
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Thanks, |
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Zac |
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