When trying to emerge a particular ebuild with portage 2.0.36 I have found two problems. This happens for all (that I've tested) packages. Example follows: From emerge man/help I tried: emerge -b net-mail/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1 I get an error saying that there is no such ebuild but emerge -s says that there is. After some playing I find that the following does work: emerge -b =net-mail/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1 This just needs the code and documentation to be consistent but isn't a big deal. However I also noticed (eventually) that the package doesn't get put into world which does give me a problem. While thinking this through I have realised that this may be intentional so this may be a request for info rather than a bug report. However I would like to know, as I am going to have to rethink some scripts because of this. I also get the same behaviour with -p in place of -b, with neither and with the package in single quotes. However while playing further, I find that: emerge 'net-mail/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1.ebuild' Fails with: Calculating dependencies \!!! doebuild: /usr/portage/tmp/ssmtp/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1.ebuild not found. portage: aux_get(): (1) couldn't open cache entry for tmp/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1 (likely caused by syntax error or corruption in the tmp/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1 ebuild.) emerge: create(): aux_get() error on tmp/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1; aborting... Keep up the good work and thanks, George.
Needing the "=" is normal; 'net-mail/ssmtp-2.38.14-r1.ebuild' failed because you didn't specify the *path* to the ebuild, and I tightened up the errors a bit in 2.0.38 to make things a little less weird.
I'm happy with what happens but I still think that there's scope for confusion in the help and man page. I'll try and find the time to go through them thoroughly and make some suggestions. It isn't likely to be soon but I seem to be the only person who's got confused (and even that wasn't for long) so there doesn't seem to be any rush anyway. Thanks
