Performance Issue with Empty File Processing in METTA_CMD

[TeamSPoon]

Issue Description

Unexpected performance metrics when running mettalog on an empty file. The command consumes significant resources

Reproduction Steps

# Create an empty file and run mettalog on it
echo "cat /dev/null > /tmp/empty.metta; time mettalog /tmp/empty.metta" | bash

Observed Output

% 2,410 inferences, 0.000 CPU in 0.000 seconds (100% CPU, 6232221 Lips)
; DEBUG Exit code of METTA_CMD: 7

real    0m1.910s
user    0m1.866s
sys     0m0.054s

Expected Behavior

The tool should handle empty files efficiently, ideally with minimal resource usage and a clean exit code unless specifically designed otherwise.

Environment

• Operating System: Debian 12
• Execution Directory: ~/metta-wam

Additional Notes

Please investigate the long time and the reasons behind the exit code 7. There may be a need for optimization or better error handling for edge cases like this.