Find files.
Syntax
locate [-0Scims] [-l limit] [-d database] pattern...
Key
-0 Print pathnames separated by an ASCII NUL character (character code 0) instead of
default NL (newline, character code 10).
-S Print some statistics about the database and exit.
-c Suppress normal output; instead print a count of matching file names.
-d database
Search in database instead of the default file name database.
Multiple -d options are allowed.
Each additional -d option adds the specified database to the list of databases to
be searched.
The option database may be a colon-separated list of databases.
A single colon is a reference to the default database.
$ locate -d $HOME/lib/mydb: foo
will first search string “foo” in $HOME/lib/mydb and then in /var/db/locate.database.
$ locate -d $HOME/lib/mydb::/cdrom/locate.database foo
will first search string “foo” in $HOME/lib/mydb and then in /var/db/locate.database and then
in /cdrom/locate.database.
$ locate -d db1 -d db2 -d db3 pattern
is the same as
$ locate -d db1:db2:db3 pattern
or
$ locate -d db1:db2 -d db3 pattern
If - is given as the database name, standard input will be read instead.
For example, you can compress your database and use:
$ zcat database.gz | locate -d - pattern
This might be useful on machines with a fast CPU and little RAM and slow I/O.
Note: you can only use one pattern for stdin.
-i Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the database.
-l number Limit output to number of file names and exit.
-m Use mmap(2) instead of the stdio(3) library.
This is the default behavior and is faster in most cases.
-s Use the stdio(3) library instead of mmap(2).
locate searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified pattern.
The database is recomputed periodically, (about once a week) and contains the path-names of all files which are publicly accessible.
Shell globbing and quoting characters (*, ?, \, [ and ]) can 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 can 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*'..
Historically, locate only stored characters between 32 and 127. The current implementation stores any character except newline (‘\n’) and NUL (‘\0’). The 8-bit character support does not
waste extra space for plain ASCII file names. Characters less than 32 or greater than 127 are stored in 2 bytes.
To force a build/update of the database:
$ cd /
$ sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb
The update can alternatively be called via a plist which executes /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb
$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist
The locate program may fail to list some files that are present, or may list files that have been removed from the system. This is because locate only reports files that are present in the database, which is typically only regenerated once a week by the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist job. Use find(1) to locate files that are of a more transitory nature.
The locate database is typically built by user “nobody” and the locate.updatedb(8) utility skips directories which are not readable for user “nobody”, group “nobody”, or world. For example, if your HOME directory is not world-readable, none of your files are in the database.
The locate database is not byte order independent. It is not possible to share the databases between machines with different byte order. The current locate implementation understands
databases in host byte order or network byte order if both architectures use the same integer size. So on a FreeBSD/i386 machine (little endian), you can read a locate database which was
built on SunOS/sparc machine (big endian, net).The locate utility does not recognize multibyte characters.
On modern hardware it is often faster to use mdfind, or to create and search an uncompressed index file of all filenames than to use the compressed locate database, source: Julia Evans [×]
sudo find / > database.txt
grep Alanis database.txt
Database:
/var/db/locate.database
Script to update database:
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedbJob that starts the database rebuild:
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.locate.plist
Search the database for files with names containing "foo",
or in folders with names containing "foo"
$ locate foo
Search the database for files (but not in folders) with names ending in ".jpg"
$ locate '*.jpg'
[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think ~ Albert Einstein
Local man page: locate - Command line help page on your local machine.
find - Search for files that meet a desired criteria.
grep - Search file(s) for lines that match a given pattern.
ln - Make links between files (hard links, symbolic links).
ls - List information about file(s).
mdfind - Spotlight search.
whereis - Locate a command.
which - Locate a program file in the user’s path.