I don't know if this is Prefix specific or general. From within an
ebuild I dumped the environment "env > env.txt". This is an extract.

PROFILE_PATHS=/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/base
/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/prefix
/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/prefix/windows
/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/prefix/windows/cygwin
/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/prefix/windows/cygwin/1.7
/home/prefix/gentoo/usr/portage/profiles/prefix/windows/cygwin/1.7/x86

What looks strange to me is the fact, that this are multiple lines.
There aren't multiple lines in other variables. It looks as if this is
is not one variable but six different ones.

It may be an artefact due to the way "env" works or from Cygwin. It
gives something to think anyway.

Al