[gentoo-portage-dev] search functionality in emerge

[Emma Strubell]

Hi everyone. My name is Emma, and I am completely new to this list. I've
been using Gentoo since 2004, including Portage of course, and before I say
anything else I'd like to say thanks to everyone for such a kickass package
management system!!

Anyway, for my final project in my Data Structures & Algorithms class this
semester, I would like to modify the search functionality in emerge.
Something I've always noticed about 'emerge -s' or '-S' is that, in general,
it takes a very long time to perform the searches. (Although, lately it does
seem to be running faster, specifically on my laptop as opposed to my
desktop. Strangely, though, it seems that when I do a simple 'emerge -av
whatever' on my laptop it takes a very long time for emerge to find the
package and/or determine the dependecies -  whatever it's doing behind that
spinner. I can definitely go into more detail about this if anyone's
interested. It's really been puzzling me!) So, as my final project I've
proposed to improve the time it takes to perform a search using emerge. My
professor suggested that I look into implementing indexing.

However, I've started looking at the code, and I must admit I'm pretty
overwhelmed! I don't know where to start. I was wondering if anyone on here
could give me a quick overview of how the search function currently works,
an idea as to what could be modified or implemented in order to improve the
running time of this code, or any tip really as to where I should start or
what I should start looking at. I'd really appreciate any help or advice!!

Thanks a lot, and keep on making my Debian-using professor jealous :]
Emma