Tutorial News Comments FAQ Related Articles

How to Install and use locate command on linux

{{postValue.id}}

Install and use locate command on Linux

The locate command is used to find files by their filename. The locate command is lightning fast because there is a background process that runs on your system that continuously finds new files and stores them in a database. This video covers the usage of locating command on Linux

Create a file by using the following command

root@linuxhelp:~# touch file.txt
root@linuxhelp:~# touch File.txt

Use the locate command to find the file.txt file, until update the DB the locate cant able to find the file

root@linuxhelp:~# locate file.txt
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/Procfile.txt.gz

Now update the DB by using the following command

root@linuxhelp:~# updatedb

Now find file.txt using locate command

root@linuxhelp:~# locate file.txt
/root/file.txt
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/Procfile.txt.gz

Use the -i option to find Case sensitivity

root@linuxhelp:~# locate -i file.txt
/root/File.txt
/root/file.txt
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/Procfile.txt.gz

Use the following command to list the particular directory using limit

root@linuxhelp:~# locate -l 5 passwd
/etc/passwd
/etc/passwd-
/etc/cron.daily/passwd
/etc/pam.d/chpasswd
/etc/pam.d/passwd

List out the file

root@linuxhelp:~# ls -la
total 55144
drwx------  4 root root     4096 Jan 12 00:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root     4096 Dec 18 00:28 ..
-rw-------  1 root root     1115 Jan 12 00:21 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 root root     3106 Apr  9  2018 .bashrc
drwx------  2 root root     4096 Aug  6 00:34 .cache
-rw-r--r--  1 root root        0 Jan 12 00:22 file.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root        0 Jan 12 00:22 File.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      148 Aug 17  2015 .profile
-r--r--r--  1 root root 56435756 Dec 18 00:59 VMwareTools-10.3.10-12406962.tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x  9 root root     4096 Feb 20  2019 vmware-tools-distrib

Remove the file.txt

root@linuxhelp:~# rm -rf file.txt

Now find the file.txt using locate command until we update the db it will show the file.txt while we use the locate command

root@linuxhelp:~# locate file.txt
/root/file.txt
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/Procfile.txt.gz

Use the following command to find the file present in the system

root@linuxhelp:~# locate -e file.txt
/usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/Procfile.txt.gz

This is the method to install and use locate command on Linux comes to end

Tags:
Author: 

Comments ( 0 )

No comments available

Frequently asked questions ( 5 )

Q

Can I execute the "locate" command to find any file (or) directory anywhere in the Linux system?

A

You can execute the "locate" command to find any file (or) directory anywhere in the Linux system.

Q

How to set a limit for search queries to a Specific Number of any file?

A

You can use the option of "-n" with the "locate" command to set a limit for search queries to a Specific Number of any file. For Ex: "locate "*.html" -n 20"

Q

How to display the information about the locate DB using the "locate" command?

A

You can use the option of "-S" with the "locate" command to display the information about the locate DB. For Syntax: "locate -S"

Q

How to print a number of found entries while executing the "locate" command?

A

You can use the option of "-c" with the "locate" command to print the number of found entries while executing the "locate" command. For eg: "locate -c file"

Q

Whether the "locate" command is the default package in Linux or not?

A

No. The "locate" command is not a default package in Linux. If you want to use the "locate" functionality, you should install it manually as per your Linux distro.

Back To Top!