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LOCATE(1) General Commands Manual LOCATE(1) NAME locate - find files SYNOPSIS locate [-d dbpath] 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*''. Options: -d dbpath Sets the list of databases to search to dbpath which can name one or more database files separated by ``:'', an empty component in the list represents the default database. The environment variable LOCATE_PATH has the same effect. FILES /var/db/locate.database Default database EXIT STATUS locate exits with a 0 if a match is found, and >0 if no match is found or if another problem (such as a missing or corrupted database file) is encountered. SEE ALSO find(1), fnmatch(3), locate.conf(5), weekly.conf(5), locate.updatedb(8) Woods, James A., "Finding Files Fast", ;login, 8:1, pp. 8-10, 1983. HISTORY The locate command appeared in 4.4BSD. NetBSD 9.99 April 19, 2004 NetBSD 9.99