[Offtopic] Python example: possible speedup?

[Robert Vollmert]

On Wed, Sep 08, 1999 at 05:37:38PM +0200, Hrvoje Niksic wrote:
> To achieve this, the program needs to parse two files:
> /var/lib/dpkg/status, to find which packages are installed, and
> /var/lib/dpkg/available, to find the size of the installed packages.
> Both files are textual, in the form of headers.  Like this:

While this is hardly relevant to python anymore, I suppose it might
interest some. While looking at the relevant data files, I found that
you only need to parse the status file as it actually contains all
information about installed packages, including an 'Installed-Size'
header.

It describes the currently installed packages, while the available
file is about the newest packages available and might contain invalid
information regarding the currently installed version.

-- 
Robert Vollmert                                      rvollmert at gmx.net