Why build INDEX ?

[Adam McLaurin]

Kris, maybe you can answer this definitively, once and for all. What are the
precise reasons why INDEX is needed? Also, what is the practical difference
between using 'make index' and 'portsdb -uU'?

I've been told by a few people that INDEX is unnecessary unless you're building
a package, which most end users will never do. However, I am suspicious that
there are other reasons for INDEX, but I've never heard definitively what they
are.

I do know that building INDEX after cvsup allows using portversion instead of
pkg_version, for a bit of a performance improvement. However, pkg_version isn't
THAT slow, so I certainly don't think building INDEX (~30-40 minutes on my box)
is worth it just for that.

Kris, want to clear my conscience here? Is it REALLY needed for the typical end
user?

-- 
Adam
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20031017/c2b9175e/attachment.bin