.\" $NetBSD: locate.1,v 1.6 1998/08/08 14:49:23 hubertf Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)locate.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 .\" .Dd June 6, 1993 .Dt LOCATE 1 .Os BSD 4.4 .Sh NAME .Nm locate .Nd find files .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Ar pattern .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified .Ar pattern . The database is recomputed periodically, and contains the pathnames of all files which are publicly accessible. .Pp Shell globbing and quoting characters (``*'', ``?'', ``\e'', ``['' and ``]'') may be used in .Ar pattern , although they will have to be escaped from the shell. Preceding any character with a backslash (``\e'') eliminates any special meaning which it may have. The matching differs in that no characters must be matched explicitly, including slashes (``/''). .Pp As a special case, a pattern containing no globbing characters (``foo'') is matched as though it were ``*foo*''. .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb -compact .It Pa /var/db/locate.database Database .It /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb Script to update database. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr find 1 , .Xr fnmatch 3 , .Xr weekly.conf 5 .Rs .%A Woods, James A. .%D 1983 .%T "Finding Files Fast" .%J ";login" .%V 8:1 .%P pp. 8-10 .Re .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appears in .Bx 4.4 .