7.2 Invoking locate

     locate [option...] pattern...

--basename

-b

The specified pattern is matched against just the last component of the name of the file in the locate database. This last component is also called the “base name”. For example, the base name of /tmp/mystuff/foo.old.c is foo.old.c. If the pattern contains metacharacters, it must match the base name exactly. If not, it must match part of the base name.

--count

-c

Instead of printing the matched filenames, just print the total number of matches we found.

--database=path

-d path

Instead of searching the default file name database, search the file name databases in path, which is a colon-separated list of database file names. You can also use the environment variable LOCATE_PATH to set the list of database files to search. The option overrides the environment variable if both are used. Empty elements in path (that is, a leading or trailing colon, or two colons in a row) are taken to stand for the default database.

--existing

-e

Only print out such names which currently exist (instead of such names which existed when the database was created). Note that this may slow down the program a lot, if there are many matches in the database. The way in which broken symbolic links are treated is affected by the -L, -P and -H options.

--follow

-L

If testing for the existence of files (with the -e option), omit broken symbolic links. This is the default.

--nofollow

-P

-H

If testing for the existence of files (with the -e option), treat broken symbolic links count as if they were exiting files. The -H form of this option is provided purely for similarity with find; the use of -P is recommended over -H.

--ignore-case

-i

Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the file names.

--limit=N

-l N

Limit the number of results printed to N. If you use the --count option, the value printed will never be larger than this limit.

--mmap

-m

Accepted but does nothing. The option is supported only to provide compatibility with BSD's locate.

--null

-0

Results are separated with the ASCII NUL character rather than the newline character. To get the full benefit of the use of this option, use the new locate database format (that is the default anyway).

--wholename

-w

The specified pattern is matched against the whole name of the file in the locate database. If the pattern contains metacharacters, it must match exactly. If not, it must match part of the whole file name. This is the default behaviour.

--regex

-r

Instead of using substring or shell glob matching, the pattern specified on the command line is understood to be a POSIX extended regular expression. Filenames from the locate database which match the specified regular expression are printed (or counted). If the -i flag is also given, matching is case-insensitive. Matches are performed against the whole path name, and so by default a pathname will be matched if any part of it matches the specified regular expression. The regular expression may use ^ or $ to anchor a match at the beginning or end of a pathname.

--stdio

-s

Accepted but does nothing. The option is supported only to provide compatibility with BSD's locate.

--statistics

-S

Print some summary information for each locate database. No search is performed.

--help

Print a summary of the options to locate and exit.

--version

Print the version number of locate and exit.