dpkg-scanpackages [was Re: General debian questions]

[Nunya <31210.nospam@comcast.net>]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:40:45AM +0000, Colin Watson wrote:
> Use dpkg-scanpackages to update the Packages file (and remember to gzip
> it, so you've got Packages.gz).

When you say "update" the Packages, are you implying that you can do an 
incremental update of an existing Packages file?

I use the command:
#dpkg-scanpackages latest /dev/null > $sub/Packages

and every invocation takes the same amount of time, it's quite a lengthy 
process, even though the archive is but little changed -- it doesn't 
"reuse" what it can.