Locate

locate reads one or more databases prepared by updatedb(8) and writes file names matching at least one of the PATTERNs to standard output, one per line.

If –regex is not specified, PATTERNs can contain globbing characters. If any PATTERN contains no globbing characters, locate behaves as if the pattern were PATTERN.

By default, locate does not check whether files found in database still exist. locate can never report files created after the most recent update of the relevant database.

Usage

locate [OPTION]... PATTERN...

Flags

  -b, --basename         search only the file name portion of path names
  -c, --count            print number of matches instead of the matches
  -d, --database DBPATH  search for files in DBPATH
                         (default is /var/lib/plocate/plocate.db)
  -i, --ignore-case      search case-insensitively
  -l, --limit LIMIT      stop after LIMIT matches
  -0, --null             delimit matches by NUL instead of newline
  -N, --literal          do not quote filenames, even if printing to a tty
  -r, --regexp           interpret patterns as basic regexps (slow)
      --regex            interpret patterns as extended regexps (slow)
  -w, --wholename        search the entire path name (default; see -b)
      --help             print this help
      --version          print version information

Examples

Update Locate database

sudo updatedb

$ locate python3 | head
/etc/python3
/etc/python3.10
/etc/python3.9
/etc/python3/debian_config
/etc/python3.10/sitecustomize.py
/etc/python3.9/sitecustomize.py
/usr/bin/dh_python3-ply
/usr/bin/ipython3
/usr/bin/pybabel-python3
/usr/bin/python3

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