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.  locate can never report files created after the most recent
       update of the relevant database.

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

       -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.

       -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 licence 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)

mlocate 							     Jul 2005								 locate(1)