LOCATE(1) BSD General Commands Manual 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 path‐
names 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
SEE ALSOfind(1), fnmatch(3)
Woods, James A., "Finding Files Fast", ;login, 8:1, pp. 8-10, 1983.
HISTORY
The locate command appears in 4.4BSD.
4.4BSD June 6, 1993 4.4BSD