Hi, I tried to quickpkg up a couple of old package versions I had lying around (for bug #99851), and I forgot the "=" prefix. The error message I got back was pretty confusing, and it took me quite some time to realize my mistake. If the user provides bad input, how about emitting an error message with some examples of good input? ribbit ~ # quickpkg dev-libs/libxslt-1.0.18 app-text/docbook-xsl-stylesheets-1.5 0.0 * Unhandled case (>>>/>>>) ! * Please file a bug at http://bugs.gentoo.org/ ribbit ~ # quickpkg =dev-libs/libxslt-1.0.18 =app-text/docbook-xsl-stylesheets-1 .50.0 * Building package for libxslt-1.0.18 ... [ ok ] * Building package for docbook-xsl-stylesheets-1.50.0 ... [ ok ] * Packages now in /usr/portage//packages/x86/: * libxslt-1.0.18: 400K * docbook-xsl-stylesheets-1.50.0: 957K ribbit ~ # equery b /usr/sbin/quickpkg [ Searching for file(s) /usr/sbin/quickpkg in *... ] sys-apps/portage-2.1_rc3-r5 (/usr/sbin/quickpkg -> ../lib/portage/bin/quickpkg) ribbit ~ # emerge info *** Deprecated use of action 'info', use '--info' instead Portage 2.1_rc3-r5 (hardened/x86/2.6, gcc-3.4.6, glibc-2.2.5-r4,glibc-2.3.6-r4, 2.6.16-vs2.1.1-rc19-gentoo i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.16-vs2.1.1-rc19-gentoo i686 AMD Athlon(tm) MP 2800+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0 distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.4 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5, 2.4.3-r1 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r1 dev-util/confcache: [Not Present] sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r2 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r5 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=athlon-mp -O2 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-mp -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks fixpackages metadata-transfer sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.ccccom.com/ http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/ http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_US.UTF-8" MAKEOPTS="-j4" PKGDIR="/usr/portage//packages/x86/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local' --exclude='/packages'" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage/" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/portage-overlay/perl-catalyst /usr/local/portage-overlay/ocfs2 /usr/local/portage-overlay/tipc" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow X aac aio akode alsa aotuv apache2 arts avi bitmap-fonts bluetooth bzip2 crypt cups curl dga divx4linux dlloader doc dri dvd dvdread encode esd ethereal exscalibar fbcon flac foomaticdb gnome gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal hardened ifp infopipe ipod ipv6 ithreads jabber jack java jpeg kde kerberos ladcca ldap live lzo mad matroska mikmod mmx mozcalendar mozdevelop mozilla moznoirc mozsvg mp3 mpm-worker msn msnextras musicbrainz ncurses netjack network nfsv4 nptl nptlonly ogg oggvorbis opengl openssl oscar pam perl pic png pnp ppds python readline real samba sdl slang sms sse ssl theora threads truetype unicode usb visualization vorbis win32codecs x264 xine xinerama xmms xpm xv xvid yahoo zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse kernel_linux userland_GNU video_cards_nv" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
This is fixed in svn r3449.
This has been released in 2.1_rc4.