Bug#506075: optimize apt-file invocations

[Damyan Ivanov]

Package: dh-make-perl
Version: 0.49
Severity: wishlist

Currently, dh-make-perl calls 'apt-file search' for each detected
dependency of the module. This makes it very slow, as apt-file parses all
the Contents files over and over for each invocation.

Instead, dh-make-perl could parse Contents* files already retrieved by
apt-file (in /var/cache/apt-file) *once* and then search in them
multiple times blazingly fast. A sample code for the parser is
available in lookup-requirements[1] under scripts/ in pkg-perl SVN
repository. It uses user-local cache to speed-up parsing. Perhaps
something similar can be used by dh-make-perl too (but perhaps put the
cache somewhere in ~/.dh-make-perl).

    [1] http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-perl/scripts/lookup-requirements?view=markup

Alternatively, dh-make-perl could use apt-xapian-index if available
(HOWTO needed).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=bg_BG.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=bg_BG.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages dh-make-perl depends on:
ii  debhelper                     7.0.17     helper programs for debian/rules
ii  dpkg-dev                      1.14.22    Debian package development tools
ii  fakeroot                      1.10.1     Gives a fake root environment
ii  libemail-date-format-perl     1.002-1    Module to generate RFC-2822-valid 
ii  libmodule-depends-perl        0.14-1     identify the dependencies of a dis
ii  libwww-mechanize-perl         1.34-2     Automate interaction with websites
ii  libyaml-perl                  0.66-1     YAML Ain't Markup Language (tm)
ii  make                          3.81-5     The GNU version of the "make" util
ii  perl                          5.10.0-17  Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  perl-modules [libpod-parser-p 5.10.0-17  Core Perl modules

Versions of packages dh-make-perl recommends:
ii  apt-file                      2.1.6      APT package searching utility -- c
ii  libmodule-build-perl          0.3000-1   Subclassable and make-independent 
ii  perl-modules [libmodule-build 5.10.0-17  Core Perl modules

dh-make-perl suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

-- 
dam            JabberID: dam at jabber.minus273.org
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