locate(1)                                                     General Commands Manual                                                    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 directories 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, --statistics 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

       -A, --all
              Print only entries that match all PATTERNs instead of requiring only one of them to match.

       -b, --basename
              Match only the base name against the specified patterns.  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.

              An  empty database file name is replaced by the default database.  A database file name - refers to the standard 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  sym-
              bolic 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.

       -p, --ignore-spaces
              Ignore punctuation and spaces when matching patterns.

       -t, --transliterate
              Ignore accents using iconv transliteration 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 bro-
              ken 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  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 successfully.

       -q, --quiet
              Write no messages about errors encountered while reading 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 'NAME'
       Because  is a globbing character, this disables the implicit replacement of NAME by *NAME*.

FILES

       /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db
              The database searched by default.

ENVIRONMENT

       LOCATE_PATH
              Path to additional databases, added after the default database or the databases specified using the --database option.

NOTES

       The order in which the requested databases are processed is unspecified, which allows locate to reorder the database path for security rea-
       sons.

       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 imple-
       mentation and slocate.

AUTHOR

       Miloslav Trmac <mitr@redhat.com>

SEE ALSO

       updatedb(8), iconv(1),

mlocate                                                              Sep 2012                                                            locate(1)