locate
(1)
Name
locate - find files by name
Synopsis
locate [OPTION]... PATTERN...
Description
User Commands locate(1)
NAME
locate - find files by name
SYNOPSIS
locate [OPTION]... PATTERN...
DESCRIPTION
locate reads one or more databases prepared by updatedb(8)
and writes file names matching at least one of the PATTERNs
to standard output, one per line.
If --regex is not specified, PATTERNs can contain globbing
characters. If any PATTERN contains no globbing characters,
locate behaves as if the pattern were *PATTERN*.
By default, locate does not check whether files found in
database still exist (but it does require all parent direc-
tories to exist if the database was built with
--require-visibility no). locate can never report files
created after the most recent update of the relevant data-
base.
EXIT STATUS
locate exits with status 0 if any match was found or if
locate was invoked with one of the --limit 0, --help, --sta-
tistics or --version options. If no match was found or a
fatal error was encountered, locate exits with status 1.
Errors encountered while reading a database are not fatal,
search continues in other specified databases, if any.
OPTIONS
-b, --basename
Match only the base name against the specified pat-
terns. This is the opposite of --wholename.
-c, --count
Instead of writing file names on standard output, write
the number of matching entries only.
-d, --database DBPATH
Replace the default database with DBPATH. DBPATH is a
:-separated list of database file names. If more than
one --database option is specified, the resulting path
is a concatenation of the separate paths.
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User Commands locate(1)
An empty database file name is replaced by the default
database. A database file name - refers to the stan-
dard input. Note that a database can be read from the
standard input only once.
-e, --existing
Print only entries that refer to files existing at the
time locate is run.
-L, --follow
When checking whether files exist (if the --existing
option is specified), follow trailing symbolic links.
This causes broken symbolic links to be omitted from
the output.
This is the default behavior. The opposite can be
specified using --nofollow.
-h, --help
Write a summary of the available options to standard
output and exit successfully.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case distinctions when matching patterns.
-l, --limit, -n LIMIT
Exit successfully after finding LIMIT entries. If the
--count option is specified, the resulting count is
also limited to LIMIT.
-m, --mmap
Ignored, for compatibility with BSD and GNU locate.
-P, --nofollow, -H
When checking whether files exist (if the --existing
option is specified), do not follow trailing symbolic
links. This causes broken symbolic links to be
reported like other files.
This is the opposite of --follow.
-0, --null
Separate the entries on output using the ASCII NUL
character instead of writing each entry on a separate
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User Commands locate(1)
line. This option is designed for interoperability
with the --null option of GNU xargs(1).
-S, --statistics
Write statistics about each read database to standard
output instead of searching for files and exit success-
fully.
-q, --quiet
Write no messages about errors encountered while read-
ing and processing databases.
-r, --regexp REGEXP
Search for a basic regexp REGEXP. No PATTERNs are
allowed if this option is used, but this option can be
specified multiple times.
--regex
Interpret all PATTERNs as extended regexps.
-s, --stdio
Ignored, for compatibility with BSD and GNU locate.
-V, --version
Write information about the version and license of
locate on standard output and exit successfully.
-w, --wholename
Match only the whole path name against the specified
patterns.
This is the default behavior. The opposite can be
specified using --basename.
EXAMPLES
To search for a file named exactly NAME (not *NAME*), use
locate -b
Because \ is a globbing character, this disables the
implicit replacement of NAME by *NAME*.
FILES
/var/cache/mlocate/mlocate.db
The database searched by default.
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User Commands locate(1)
ENVIRONMENT
LOCATE_PATH
Path to additional databases, added after the default
database or the databases specified using the --data-
base option.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | file/mlocate |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
NOTES
The order in which the requested databases are processed is
unspecified, which allows locate to reorder the database
path for security reasons.
locate attempts to be compatible to slocate (without the
options used for creating databases) and GNU locate, in that
order. This is the reason for the impractical default
--follow option and for the confusing set of --regex and
--regexp options.
The short spelling of the -r option is incompatible to GNU
locate, where it corresponds to the --regex option. Use the
long option names to avoid confusion.
The LOCATE_PATH environment variable replaces the default
database in BSD and GNU locate, but it is added to other
databases in this implementation and slocate.
AUTHOR
Miloslav Trmac <mitr@redhat.com>
SEE ALSO
updatedb(8)
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from https://fedora-
hosted.org/releases/m/l/mlocate/mlocate-0.25.tar.xz
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User Commands locate(1)
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at https://fedora-
hosted.org/mlocate.
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