The
simplest way to find files under Linux is to use the locate
program. This article explains how to use locate tool
to find your files easily. When you run locate for the
first time, you might get an error message. To get it working
refer to the Note at the bottom of the page.
If you want to do more than simply find the location of files
then you can use the excellent find tool. The find
tool allows you do refined searches. Article
No. 21 explains the find tool in detail.
Procedure :
Here are various ways to use locate tool
-
$ locate index.html
It would produce a list of the locations where you could find
files that are named as index.html. This might produce results
as follows
/home/pamela/index.html
/usr/local/games/pam/index.html
-
You could use the -q option to suppress error messages. Error
messages would typically be messages stating that permission
to access files were not allowed since you are only a user (not
superuser). The -q option would suppress any other error messages
as well
$ locate "*.dat" -q
-
You could use the -n option to limit the number of returned
results to a specific number. E.g. you could ask for only 10
search results by the following command
$ locate "*.c" -n 10
This would return the first 10 files that end in .c that Linux
finds.
-
You could use the -i option in case you wanted to perform a
case insensitive search. The case of the filenames would not
be considered
$ locate INDEX.HTML -i
-
You could make your search faster by typing the following
$ locate index.html -l 0
Typing -l 1 takes longer time for the search to complete but
is more secure. This is the default action that takes place
when the -l option is not mentioned.
-
There are few more parameters that can be used with locate,
but they are generally not used. You can find them in the man
pages.
Note : When you run 'locate' for the first time, you
will get a message stating that the db is not available. Linux
requires a database of all the files, which locate uses to find
the files. The message would also state that you can log in
as root and run a particular command. Simply doing so would
get locate to work perfectly. To change to the superuser mode
type 'su' at the prompt. Then type the command you were asked
to run (as indicated in the message). Type <Ctrl>+D to
exit the superuser mode. Now you can continue with locate commands
as normal.
