How do I use the locate command within a specified directory?

From:  http://serverfault.com/questions/313733/how-do-i-use-the-locate-command-within-a-specified-directory 

I am using the locate command on Linux. My current usage of it searches through the entire filesystem. I only want it to search within a specific directory. How can I do this?

linux locate

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edited Sep 21 '11 at 5:16

Shane Madden♦
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asked Sep 21 '11 at 2:18

telnet
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3 Answers

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up vote4down vote

Another approach would be to use the pattern matching in locate:

locate '/some/directory/*filename*'

Compare the output of the commands below:

$ locate tmpfile/usr/lib64/perl5/auto/POSIX/tmpfile.al/usr/share/man/fr/man3/tmpfile.3.gz/usr/share/man/ja/man3/tmpfile.3.gz/usr/share/man/man3/tmpfile.3.gz/usr/share/man/man3p/tmpfile.3p.gz$$ locate '/usr/lib64/*tmpfile*'/usr/lib64/perl5/auto/POSIX/tmpfile.al$ 

locate /usr/lib*tmpfile* gives the same result.

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answered Sep 21 '11 at 4:02

Paweł Brodacki
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+1 This is the correct answer. Note that if you include the wildcard, the boundaries become fixed. That is in the above example, $ locate '/usr/lib64/*tmpfile' will return no results. –  xofer Sep 21 '11 at 4:36

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up vote2down vote

The simplest answer I can think of is

locate search_term | grep "/specified/directory"

The better solution might be to use "find" and its path options...

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answered Sep 21 '11 at 2:23

gharper
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up vote2down vote

Create slocate database for your specific directory with:

locate -U /path/to/directory

and search with:

locate <search_string>

---

UPDATE

This works fine on my Gentoo system but CentOS doesn't include -U option. So, you can try below instead:

Build the database with:

# updatedb -U /path/to/dir -o dir_locate.db

and search:

# locate -d dir_locate.db <search_string>

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edited Sep 21 '11 at 3:21

answered Sep 21 '11 at 2:28

quanta
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"locate -U" throws an invalid option error... Guessing you meant "updatedb -U"? Also good to note this requires an mlocate.db rebuild (updatedb) if you ever want to search another directory. –  gharper Sep 21 '11 at 2:59

 

Oh, on my Gentoo it works fine but CentOS doesn't include this option. –  quanta Sep 21 '11 at 3:21

 

Down vote? Could you please leave a comment? –  quanta Sep 21 '11 at 4:44

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