LOCATE(1) BSD General Commands Manual LOCATE(1)NAMElocate — find files
SYNOPSISlocate [-d dbpath] pattern
DESCRIPTIONlocate searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified
pattern. The database is recomputed periodically, and contains the path‐
names of all files which are publicly accessible.
Shell globbing and quoting characters (``*'', ``?'', ``\'', ``['' and
``]'') may be used in pattern, although they will have to be escaped from
the shell. Preceding any character with a backslash (``\'') eliminates
any special meaning which it may have. The matching differs in that no
characters must be matched explicitly, including slashes (``/'').
As a special case, a pattern containing no globbing characters (``foo'')
is matched as though it were ``*foo*''.
Options:
-d dbpath
Sets the list of databases to search to dbpath which can name one
or more database files separated by ``:'', an empty component in
the list represents the default database. The environment variable
LOCATE_PATH has the same effect.
EXIT STATUSlocate exits with a 0 if a match is found, and >0 if no match is found or
if another problem (such as a missing or corrupted database file) is
encountered.
FILES
/var/db/locate.database Default database
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb Script to update database.
SEE ALSOfind(1), fnmatch(3), weekly.conf(5)
Woods, James A., "Finding Files Fast", ;login, 8:1, pp. 8-10, 1983.
HISTORY
The locate command appeared in 4.4BSD.
BSD April 5, 2003 BSD