LOCATE(1)

NAME
locate - find files

SYNOPSIS
locate 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*''.

FILES
/var/db/locate.database
    The actual database
/usr/libexec/locate.updatedb
    Script to update the locate database

SEE ALSO
find(1), fnmatch(3), locate.updatedb(8) Woods, James A., 1983, Finding Files Fast, ;login, 8:1, pp. 8-10.

BUGS
Locate may fail to list some files that are present, or may to 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 /etc/weekly script. Use find(1) to locate files that are of a more transitory nature.

HISTORY
The locate command appears in 4.4BSD.