.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\"
.\"     @(#)locate.1	5.3 (Berkeley) 07/24/90
.\"
.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
.Dw /var/db/locate.database
.Di L
.Dp Pa /var/db/locate.database
.Dp
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr fnmatch 3
.br
Paper in February,
1983 issue of the USENIX publication
.Sy ;login: .
.Sh HISTORY
4.4 BSD.