locate(1) [opendarwin man page]
LOCATE(1) BSD General Commands Manual LOCATE(1) NAME
locate -- find files SYNOPSIS
locate [-d dbpath] pattern DESCRIPTION
locate searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified pattern. The database is recomputed periodically, and contains the pathnames 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 STATUS
locate 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 ALSO
find(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
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LOCATE.CONF(5) BSD File Formats Manual LOCATE.CONF(5) NAME
locate.conf -- locate database configuration file DESCRIPTION
The locate.conf file specifies the behavior of locate.updatedb(8), which creates the locate(1) database. The locate.conf file contains a list of newline separated records, each of which is composed of a keyword and arguments, which are separated by white space. Arguments with embedded shell metacharacters must be quoted in sh(1) style. Lines beginning with ``#'' are treated as com- ments and ignored. However, a ``#'' in the middle of a line does not start a comment. The configuration options are as follows: ignore pattern ... Ignore files or directories. When building the database, do not descend into files or directories which match one of the specified patterns. The matched files or directories are not stored to the database. Default: Not specified. ignorecontents pattern ... Ignore contents of directories. When building the database, do not descend into files or directories which match one of the speci- fied patterns. The matched files or directories themselves are stored to the database. Default: Not specified. ignorefs type ... Ignore file system by type, adding type to the default list. When building the database, do not descend into file systems which are of the specified type. The mount points are not stored to the database. If a ``!'' is prepended to type, the meaning is negated, that is, ignore file systems which do not have the type. As a special case, if ``none'' is specified for type, the ignorefs list is cleared and all file systems are traversed. type is used as an argument to find(1) -fstype. The sysctl(8) command can be used to find out the types of file systems that are available on the system: sysctl vfs.generic.fstypes Default: !local cd9660 fdesc kernfs procfs searchpath directory ... Specify base directories to be put in the database. Default: / workdir directory Specify the working directory of locate.updatedb, in which a temporary file is placed. The temporary file is a list of all files, and you should specify a directory that has enough space to hold it. Default: /tmp Refer to find(1) for the details of pattern (see -path expression) and type (see -fstype expression). FILES
/etc/locate.conf The file locate.conf resides in /etc. SEE ALSO
find(1), locate(1), locate.updatedb(8), sysctl(8) HISTORY
The locate.conf file format first appeared in NetBSD 2.0. AUTHORS
ITOH Yasufumi BSD
July 10, 2011 BSD