1 | <sect2>
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2 | <title>Contents</title>
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3 |
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4 | <para>The Findutils package contains the find, locate, updatedb, xargs,
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5 | frcode, code and bigram programs.</para>
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6 |
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7 | </sect2>
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8 |
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9 | <sect2><title>Description</title>
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10 |
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11 | <sect3><title>Find</title>
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12 |
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13 | <para>The find program searches for files in a directory hierarchy which match
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14 | a certain criteria. If no criteria is given, it lists all files in the
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15 | current directory and it's subdirectories.</para>
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16 |
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17 | </sect3>
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18 |
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19 | <sect3><title>Locate</title>
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20 |
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21 | <para>Locate scans a database which contain all files and directories on a
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22 | filesystem. This program lists the files and directories in this
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23 | database matching a certain criteria. If a user is looking for a file this
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24 | program will scan the database and tell him exactly where the files he
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25 | requested are located. This only makes sense if the locate database is
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26 | fairly up-to-date else it will provide out-of-date information.</para>
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27 |
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28 | </sect3>
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29 |
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30 | <sect3><title>Updatedb</title>
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31 |
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32 | <para>The updatedb program updates the locate database. It scans the entire
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33 | file system (including other file system that are currently mounted
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34 | unless it is told not to do so) and puts every directory and file it finds
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35 | into the database that's used by the locate program which retrieves this
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36 | information. It's a good practice to update this database once a day to
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37 | have it up-to-date whenever it is needed.</para>
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38 |
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39 | </sect3>
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40 |
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41 | <sect3><title>Xargs</title>
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42 |
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43 | <para>The xargs command applies a command to a list of files. If there is
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44 | a need to perform the same command on multiple files, a file can be created
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45 | that contains all these files (one per line) and use xargs to perform that
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46 | command on the list.</para>
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47 |
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48 | </sect3>
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49 |
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50 | <sect3><title>frcode</title>
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51 |
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52 | <para>updatedb runs a program called frcode to compress the list of file names
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53 | using front-compression, which reduces the database size by a factor of
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54 | 4 to 5.</para>
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55 |
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56 | </sect3>
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57 |
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58 | <sect3><title>code</title>
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59 |
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60 | <para>code is the ancestor of frcode. It was used in older-style locate
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61 | databases.</para>
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62 |
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63 | </sect3>
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64 |
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65 | <sect3><title>bigram</title>
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66 |
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67 | <para>bigram is used together with code to produce older-style locate
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68 | databases. To learn more about these last three programs, read the locatedb.5
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69 | manual page.</para>
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70 |
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71 | </sect3>
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72 |
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73 | </sect2>
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74 |
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