.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\"
.\"	@(#)locate.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 06/06/93
.\"
.Dd 
.Dt LOCATE 1
.Os BSD 4.4
.Sh NAME
.Nm locate
.Nd find files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Ar locate
pattern
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Locate
searches a database for all pathnames which match the specified
.Ar pattern  .
The database is recomputed periodically, and contains the pathnames
of all files which are publicly accessible.
.Pp
Shell globbing and quoting characters (``*'', ``?'', ``\e'', ``[''
and ``]'')
may be used in
.Ar pattern  ,
although they will have to be escaped from the shell.
Preceding any character with a backslash (``\e'') eliminates any special
meaning which it may have.
The matching differs in that no characters must be matched explicitly,
including slashes (``/'').
.Pp
As a special case, a pattern containing no globbing characters (``foo'')
is matched as though it were ``*foo*''.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /var/db/locate.database -compact
.It Pa /var/db/locate.database
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr fnmatch 3
.Rs
.%A Woods, James A.
.%D 1983
.%T "Finding Files Fast"
.%J ";login"
.%V 8:1
.%P pp. 8-10
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm locate
command appears in
.Bx 4.4 .