This command lets you locate a file without scanning directories.

Does it basically search whole Hard Disc to find the file or ???

(12-19-2009 09:20 PM)drdebcol Wrote:  Does it basically search whole Hard Disc to find the file or ???

Unix system keep track of every file created and placed on the system already. So every file you have on the system is in a database. So it just simply locates it in the database

you can use the find command to scan the harddrive

That sounds great. That is reliable !

yea pretty much instant

The indexes get updated by the updatedb command, so if updatedb hasn't ran since last time there's a new file you are looking for, the find command could be quicker. If you look in /etc/cron.daily on Ubuntu, you will see a script that runs daily only if the computer is not running on battery power. And with /etc/crontab, you can see that scripts in /etc/cron.daily run at 4:17pm each day by default.

1 # /etc/crontab: system-wide crontab
2 # Unlike any other crontab you don't have to run the `crontab'
3 # command to install the new version when you edit this file
4 # and files in /etc/cron.d. These files also have username fields,
5 # that none of the other crontabs do.
6
7 SHELL=/bin/sh
8 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
9
10 # m h dom mon dow user command
11 17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
12 25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
13 47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
14 52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
15 #
16
17

@drdebcol

It searches everything that's not blacklisted in /etc/updatedb.conf

So edit that file if you want to search in more locations.

But the locate command won't find anything thats newer than the last time updatedb was ran. updatedb runs automatically on intervals by cron, but you can run it manually too.

locate doesn't have nearly as many features as the find command. Use -i to ignore case.

any kind of file? unless if the filename is incorrect right?

(02-17-2011 05:41 PM)ron77hays Wrote:  any kind of file? unless if the filename is incorrect right?

yes