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eclass
From Gentoo Wiki (test)
An eclass is a collection of code which can be used by more than one ebuild.[1] At the time of writing, all eclasses live in the eclass/ directory of the Gentoo ebuild repository.
To use an eclass, it must be 'inherited'. This is done via the inherit function, which is provided by ebuild.sh. The inherit statement must come at the top of the ebuild, before any functions.[2]