Bug#806924: apt-utils: Major performance regression in apt-ftparchive

[Daniel Schepler <dschepler@gmail.com>]

Package: apt-utils
Version: 1.1.2
Severity: normal

I'm running a set of scripts here to rebuild the archive using pbuilder, and 
they use apt-ftparchive to generate indices for "dogfooding" the results.  In 
the case where only a couple packages were updated between runs, it used to be 
able to complete within about 3 minutes per architecture (or less depending on 
disk cache).  However, approximately since the upgrade to apt 1.1, it's now 
taking about 15 minutes per architecture.

I've tried removing the cache DB files, in case there was some incompatible 
data from the previous version that was causing that.  However, that didn't 
resolve the slowed performance.  After the first run regenerating the cache DBs 
(which I think took about 2 or 3 hours per architecture), it went back to 
taking c. 15 minutes per arch.

When I run strace on an apt-ftparchive process (with DB), it still seems to be 
reading a great number of .deb files, even ones that haven't changed for 
months.

Here's the configuration file I'm using with apt-ftparchive generate.  (I 
haven't changed it since well before the upgrade.)

Dir {
        ArchiveDir ".";
        OverrideDir "dists";
        CacheDir "dists";
};

Default {
        Packages::Compress ". gzip bzip2";
        Contents::Compress ". gzip bzip2";
}

Tree "dists/sid" {
        Sections "main old partial";
        Architectures "amd64 i386";
        Directory "pool/$(SECTION)";
        Packages "dists/sid/$(SECTION)/binary-$(ARCH)/Packages";
        BinOverride "override.sid.main";
        ExtraOverride "override.sid.extra.main";
}
-- 
Daniel Schepler