Phillip J. Eby wrote:
Note by the way that "scan all these ZIP files" is a misleading
term in any
case - the files are not "scanned". They are opened, and a small
amount of
data is read from the end of the file. Nothing that I would consider
"scanning" is involved.
The data read from the end of the file is the directory
which is decoded using marshal functions. You normally
call this scanning data.
Like Martin said: you always have to read the whole ZIP
directory - even if you're just interested in a single
module with the file.
Actually loading the module then requires decompressing
the code which takes a whole lot longer than just reading
a file from the file system.