locate is a
Unix utility which serves to find
files on
filesystems. It searches through a prebuilt
database of files generated by the
updatedb command or by a
daemon and compressed using
incremental encoding. It operates significantly faster than
find, but requires regular updating of the database. This sacrifices overall efficiency (because of the regular interrogation of filesystems even when no user needs information) and absolute accuracy (since the database does not update in
real time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
) for significant speed improvements, particularly on very large filesystems.
locate was first created in 1982. The BSD and
GNU Findutils versions derive from the original implementation. Their primary database is world-readable, so the index is built as an unprivileged user.
locate command is also included in
MacOS.
mlocate (Merging Locate) and the earlier
slocate (Secure Locate) use a restricted-access database, only showing filenames accessible to the user.
See also
*
mdfind
Spotlight is a system-wide desktop search feature of Apple Inc., Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. Spotlight is a selection-based search system, which creates an index of all items and files on the system. It is designed to allow the user ...
related command in MacOS
References
External links
GNU Findutilsmlocate*
*
*
Variants:
plocate- Variant faster than mlocate, with a smaller index.
rlocate- Variant using kernel module and daemon for continuous updates.
KwickFind- KDE GUI frontend for locate
* Locate32 for Windows - GPL'ed graphical Windows variant (no longer available)
GNU Project software
Unix file system-related software
Information retrieval systems
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