locate is a Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 utility first created in 1983 used to find files on filesystems. It searches through a prebuilt database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 of files generated by updatedb or a daemon

Daemon (computer software)

In Unix and other multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user...

 and compressed using incremental encoding

Incremental encoding

Incremental encoding, also known as front compression, back compression, or front coding, is a type of delta encoding compression algorithm whereby common prefixes or suffixes and their lengths are recorded so that they need not be duplicated...

. It is significantly faster than find

Find

In Unix-like and some other operating systems, find is a command-line utility that searches through one or more directory trees of a file system, locates files based on some user-specified criteria and applies a user-specified action on each matched file...

, but requires the database to be updated regularly.

The GNU version is a part of GNU Findutils.

Some versions can also be used to index network filesystems.

External links

• GNU Findutils

Variants:

• mlocate - faster updates
• rlocate - always up-to-date
• KwickFind - KDE GUI frontend for locate
• Locate32 for Windows Windows analog of GNU locate with GUI, released under GNU license
• linux locate linux locate infomation