Locate Documentation

A comprehensive guide to locate — the fastest file-finding utility on Linux. Unlike find, which reads the live filesystem, locate queries a pre-built database and returns results in milliseconds.

Mental model: locate is a search engine for your filesystem. The database is the index, updatedb is the crawler, and locate is the query interface.

Where locate Fits

Tool	Speed	Accuracy	Filters
find	Medium	100% real-time	Metadata (size, perms, time)
locate	Instant	Stale by up to 24h	Path substring only
fd	Fast	100% real-time	Name, type, time, size

Use locate when: you want instant results and don't care about files created in the last 24 hours.

Curriculum

1. Introduction

• What is Locate? — Architecture, mlocate vs plocate.
• Locate vs Find vs fd — When to use which.

2. Installation & Setup

• Installing locate — mlocate, plocate, and the updatedb cron job.

3. Core Searching

• Basic Patterns — Substring, case sensitivity, and limits.
• Regex and Basename — --regex, -b, and anchoring.

4. Database Management

• Updatedb — Manual updates, cron scheduling, and database location.
• Excluding Paths — /etc/updatedb.conf configuration.

5. Advanced Filtering

• Existence Checks — -e to filter stale results.
• Counting and Stats — -c and database size information.

6. Scripting & Pipelines

• Safe Output — Null-delimited output and xargs.
• Pipeline Workflows — Combining with grep, sort, and wc.

7. Real World Workflows

• Config File Discovery — Finding config files system-wide.
• Quick Sysadmin Lookups — Man pages, libraries, and binary paths.

8. Troubleshooting

• Stale Results — Ghost files and missing entries.
• Permission Issues — SLOCATE and database access.

9. Cheatsheet

• Locate Cheatsheet — All flags and recipes.

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Quick Start

# Install and initialize
sudo apt install mlocate && sudo updatedb

# Search instantly
locate nginx.conf              # find by substring
locate -i "readme"            # case insensitive
locate -b "\nginx.conf"       # basename exact match
locate -e "*.log" | head -20  # only show files that exist