| 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| 26 | fairly up-to-date else it will provide out-of-date information.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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