locate

output files in databases that match a pattern

The databases entries includes all parent directories and / and . are not treated specially in pattern.

If pattern is a plain string (i.e. it contains no metacharacters), all names that contain that string are output as if pattern began and ended with *.
For example: hive is equivelent to *hive* and
foo*bar will match names containing fooMybar as well as foo3/bar and *duck* can match a name that contains lake/.ducky.

Patterns can contain shell-style metacharacters: *, ?, and [] (which may need to be quoted to protect them from shell expansion).
patterns including metacharacters may need to begin with * (to match parent directories).

Output going to a terminal will have control characters escaped in the same way as the -print action of find

Environment

See

BUGS The locate database handles filenames containing newlines if the system's sort suppports -z . If you suspect that locate may need to return filenames containing newlines, consider using --null.

Use Savannah.gnu.org to submit bugs.
Join the bug-findutils mailing list, send email to tbug-findutils-request@gnu.org

In networked environments, it often makes sense to build a database at the root of each filesystem, containing the entries for that filesystem. updatedb is run for each filesystem on the fileserver where that filesystem is on a local disk, to prevent thrashing the network. Users can select which databases locate searches using an environment variable or command line option; see locate. Databases can not be concatenated together.

--findoptions=option1 -option2... Global options to pass to find.
The environment variable FIND‑OPTIONS sets this value. Default is none.

--localpaths=/path1 path2... Non-network directories to put in the database. Default is /.

--netpaths=path1 path2... Network (NFS, AFS, RFS, etc.) directories to put in the database.
The environment variable NETPATHS sets this value. Default is none.

--prunepaths=path1 path2... Directories to exclude. ( no trailing slashes )
The environment variable PRUNEPATHS sets this value. Default /tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs.

--prunefs=path… File systems to exclude.
The environment variable PRUNEFS sets this value. Default is nfs NFS proc.

--output=dbfile file to build, default is /var/cache/locate/locatedb.

--localuser=user The user to search non-network directories as, using su. Default is to search the non-network directories as the current user.
The environment variable LOCALUSER .

--netuser=user The user to search network directories as, using su. Default is daemon.
the environment variable NETUSER .

--old-format Create the database in the old format

--version display the version number of updatedb and exit.
--help display a summary of the options to updatedb and exit.

updatedb [-qv][--output=file]

 # Filesystems that are pruned from updatedb database
PRUNEFS="auto mqueue proc supermount devpts afs autofs cifs devfs   
            eventpollfs futexfs gfs  
            hugetlbfs iso9660 ncpfs nfs NFS nfs4 nfsd nnpfs 
            pipefs ramfs rpc_pipefs selinuxfs sfs shfs smbfs 
            sockfs spufs subfs sysfs tmpfs udf usbfs vperfctrfs"

# Paths which are pruned from updatedb database
PRUNEPATHS="/tmp /var/tmp /root/.ccache"

# nice value to run at: see -n in nice(1)
NICE="10"

# ionice class to run at: see -c in ionice(1)
IONICE_CLASS="2"

# ionice priority to run at: see -n in ionice(1)
IONICE_PRIORITY="7"

BUGS

See