This manual page
documents the GNU version of
locate.
For each given pattern,
locate
searches one or more databases of file names and displays the
file names that contain the pattern. Patterns can contain shell-style
metacharacters: `*', `?', and `[]'. The metacharacters do not treat
`/' or `.' specially. Therefore, a pattern `foo*bar' can match a
file name that contains `foo3/bar', and a pattern `*duck*' can match a
file name that contains `lake/.ducky'. Patterns that contain
metacharacters should be quoted to protect them from expansion by the
shell.
If a pattern is a plain string --- it contains no metacharacters ---
locate
displays all file names in the database that contain that string
anywhere. If a pattern does contain metacharacters,
locate
only displays file names that match the pattern exactly. As a result,
patterns that contain metacharacters should usually begin with a `*',
and will most often end with one as well. The exceptions are patterns
that are intended to explicitly match the beginning or end of a file
name.
The file name databases contain lists of files that were on the system
when the databases were last updated. The system administrator can
choose the file name of the default database, the frequency with which
the databases are updated, and the directories for which they contain
entries; see updatedb(1).
If
locate's
output is going to a terminal, unusual characters in the output are
escaped in the same way as for the -print action of the
find
command. If the output is not going to a terminal, file names are
printed exactly as-is.
OPTIONS
-A, --all
Print only names which match all non-option arguments, not those matching
one or more non-option arguments.
-c, --count
Instead of printing the matched filenames, just print the total
number of matches we found, unless --print (-p) is also present.
-d path, --database=path
Instead of searching the default file name database, search the file
name databases in path, which is a colon-separated list of
database file names. You can also use the environment variable
LOCATE_PATH
to set the list of database files to search.
The option overrides the environment variable if both are used. Empty
elements in the path are taken to be synonyms for the file name of the
default database.
A database can be supplied on stdin, using `-' as an element
of path. If more than one element of path is `-',
later instances are ignored (and a warning message is printed).
The file name database format changed starting with GNU
find
and
locate
version 4.0 to allow machines with different byte orderings to share
the databases. This version of
locate
can automatically recognize and read databases produced for older
versions of GNU
locate
or Unix versions of
locate
or
find.
Support for the old locate database format will be discontinued in a
future release.
-e, --existing
Only print out such names that currently exist (instead of such names
that existed when the database was created).
Note that this may slow down the program a lot, if there are many matches
in the database. If you are using this option within a program,
please note that it is possible for the file to be deleted after
locate
has checked that it exists, but before you use it.
-E, --non-existing
Only print out such names that currently do not exist (instead of such names
that existed when the database was created).
Note that this may slow down the program a lot, if there are many matches
in the database.
-L, --follow
If testing for the existence of files (with the -e or -E options),
consider broken symbolic links to be non-existing. This is the default.
-P, -H, --nofollow
If testing for the existence of files (with the -e or -E options), treat
broken symbolic links as if they were existing files. The -H
form of this option is provided purely for similarity with
find;
the use of -P is recommended over -H.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the file names.
-l N, --limit=N
Limit the number of matches to N. If a limit is set via this option,
the number of results printed for the -c option will never be larger
than this number.
-m, --mmap
Accepted but does nothing, for compatibility with BSD
locate.
-0, --null
Use ASCII NUL as a separator, instead of newline.
-p, --print
Print search results when they normally would not, because of the presence
of --statistics (-S) or --count (-c).
-w, --wholename
Match against the whole name of the file as listed in the database.
This is the default.
-b, --basename
Results are considered to match if the pattern specified matches the
final component of the name of a file as listed in the database.
This final component is usually referred to as the `base name'.
-r, --regex
The pattern specified on the command line is understood to be a
regular expression, as opposed to a glob pattern. The Regular
expressions work in the same was as in
emacs
and
find,
except for the fact that "." will match a newline.
Filenames whose full paths match the specified regular expression are
printed (or, in the case of the -c option, counted). If you wish to
anchor your regular expression at the ends of the full path name, then
as is usual with regular expressions, you should use the characters ^
and $ to signify this.
-s, --stdio
Accepted but does nothing, for compatibility with BSD
locate.
-S, --statistics
Print various statistics about each locate database and then exit
without performing a search, unless non-option arguments are given.
For compatibility with BSD, -S is accepted as a synonym
for --statistics. However, the ouptut of
locate -S
is different for the GNU and BSD implementations of
locate.
--help
Print a summary of the options to
locate
and exit.
--version
Print the version number of
locate
and exit.
ENVIRONMENT
LOCATE_PATH
Colon-separated list of databases to search. If the value has a
leading or trailing colon, or has two colons in a row, you may get
results that vary between different versions of
locate.
All versions of GNU locate prior to 4.2.31 fail to correctly handle
long (roughly, over 1024 bytes) filenames in old-format databases.
This can lead to a heap buffer overrun and it a potential security
issue. Verions 4.3.0 to 4.3.6 are also affected by the bug.
Databases in the default LOCATE02 format are correctly handled.
The locate database correctly handles filenames containing newlines,
but only if the system's sort command has a working
-z
option. If you suspect that
locate
may need to return filenames containing newlines, consider using its
--null
option.
The best way to report a bug is to use the form at
http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils.
The reason for this is that you will then be able to track progress in
fixing the problem. Other comments about locate(1) and about
the findutils package in general can be sent to the
bug-findutils
mailing list. To join the list, send email to
bug-findutils-request@gnu.org.
