locate (Unix)

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locate (in German "localize") is a program from UNIX for quickly finding files by specifying search terms related to the file name and, with newer versions, with the help of regular expressions . A database is searched that is updated at regular intervals by the updatedb utility program (mostly via a cron job). This database contains a list of all files on the system, which means that files can be found quickly - in contrast to find , which searches the entire database anew with every search query. In modern UNIX distributions like GNU / Linux slocate is often used, which has been expanded to include some security aspects . slocate is part of the GNU Findutils (see web links).

Example:

$ locate bash
/usr/bin/bashbug
/bin/bash

Update the database:

To bring the database up to date, use the command as user "root":

# updatedb

Web links