(darwin-legacy pretest) about 5% slow-down of \edef in etex

[jfbu]

Hi,

Doing 10,000,000 times \edef\z{666} takes about 5% more time
with the darwin-legacy pretest compared to TeXLive 2019
if done with etex, but no noticeable difference with tex.

more precisely on a 2.8Ghz intel core i7 Mac under mac os x 10.9.5

circa 1.5s with tex both for TeXLive 2019 and 2020

circa 1.6s (a bit more) with etex + 2019
circa 1.7s (a bit less) with etex + 2020

(there is some of this which is taken up from launching the binary itself,
as one can see by doubling the number of \edef, which is more like 3.25s
versus 3.08s but it gives idea)

Any idea?

Best,

Jean-François

\def\A{\B\B\B\B\B\B\B\B\B\B}% 10
\def\B{\C\C\C\C\C\C\C\C\C\C}% 100
\def\C{\noexpand\A\noexpand\A\noexpand\A\noexpand\A
      \noexpand\A\noexpand\A\noexpand\A\noexpand\A
      \noexpand\A\noexpand\A}% 1000
\edef\D{\A}% 1000
\edef\E{\D}% 1000000

\def\A{\edef\z{666}}

\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\E\message{.}
\bye