more efficient of two evils?

HELO.  I'll save you some time and mention that if you don't know
anything about the internal guts of procmail, you can delete this
message and keep going.  :-)

I'm faced with the following situation:  conceptually, the rcfile would
look like this:

        :0
        * condition_1
        the_action

        :0
        * condition_2
        the_action

        .....

        :0
        * condition_N
        the_action

where N is concievably very large.  Every instance of "the_action" is
exactly the same.  Now, the conditions are quite similar, enough that
the rcfile could appear as a single recipe:

        :0
        * common_stuff(1|2|3|.....|N)other_common_stuff
        the_action


So, my question is:  forgetting for the moment the inherent
unreadability and unmaintainability of the latter syntax (to the novice,
at least), which format is more efficient for procmail?  I am not
familiar enough with the internal algorithm to know.

Also, since the conditions are mutually exclusive, how much of a
speed/memory increase would I see if the first format was slightly
altered to behave in an "else if" format:

        :0
        * condition_1
        the_action

        :0 E
        * condition_2
        the_action

        .....

        :0 E
        * condition_N
        the_action


Thanks for any thoughts you might have on the subject.


Luck++;
Phil

-- 
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