The following provides timings of the file registration loop, within 'portinstall.tcl'. The port being installed was 'texlive-fonts-extra', which consists of approximately 87,000 files.

Each line represents the number of files processed during the previous 15-second period. The total time to register all files was just over 28 minutes. Total port installation time was approximately 30 minutes.

Note that no profiling was enabled, to avoid skewing the results. The only addition from stock MacPorts, is a 'ui_debug' statement output after each file is processed.

In terms of hardware, this test was run on a 2008 MacPro (a MacPro3,1). The machine is a base model, equipped with dual quad-core Xeons clocked at 2.8 GHz.

    8798
   12309
   14956
   17149
   19039
   20747
   22309
   23741
   25142
   26435
   27688
   28874
   30020
   31133
   32186
   33196
   34205
   35182
   36129
   37041
   37911
   38785
   39622
   40458
   41264
   42029
   42794
   43559
   44292
   45024
   45728
   46428
   47127
   47827
   48493
   49150
   49849
   50508
   51212
   51868
   52529
   53160
   53787
   54418
   55044
   55670
   56262
   56884
   57477
   58103
   58664
   59259
   59852
   60404
   60960
   61517
   62074
   62630
   63155
   63708
   64228
   64751
   65271
   65793
   66316
   66804
   67329
   67815
   68335
   68824
   69312
   69765
   70252
   70735
   71227
   71677
   72132
   72624
   73075
   73531
   73986
   74436
   74884
   75341
   75760
   76215
   76631
   77085
   77502
   77923
   78372
   78792
   79208
   79623
   80042
   80460
   80877
   81294
   81678
   82093
   82511
   82895
   83313
   83696
   84082
   84504
   84888
   85268
   85654
   86036
   86420
   86803
   87169