source: chapter06/findutils.xml@ b8a819f

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<sect1 id="ch-system-findutils" xreflabel="Findutils" role="wrap">
<title>Findutils-&findutils-version;</title>
<?dbhtml filename="findutils.html"?>

<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils"><primary sortas="a-Findutils">Findutils</primary></indexterm>

<sect2 role="package"><title/>
<para>The Findutils package contains programs to find files. Processes
are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to
create, maintain and search a database (often faster than the recursive
find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).</para>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>&buildtime;</segtitle>
<segtitle>&diskspace;</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>0.2 SBU</seg><seg>7.5 MB</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>Findutils installation depends on</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>Bash, Binutils, Coreutils,
Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>
</sect2>

<sect2 role="installation">
<title>Installation of Findutils</title>

<para>Prepare Findutils for compilation:</para>

<screen><userinput>./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/lib/locate \
    --localstatedir=/var/lib/locate</userinput></screen>

<para>The localstatedir directive above changes the location of the locate
database to be in /var/lib/locate, which is FHS-compliant.</para>

<para>Compile the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make</userinput></screen>

<para>To test the results, issue:
<userinput>make check</userinput>.</para>

<para>Now install the package:</para>

<screen><userinput>make install</userinput></screen>

</sect2>


<sect2 id="contents-findutils" role="content"><title>Contents of Findutils</title>

<segmentedlist>
<segtitle>Installed programs</segtitle>
<seglistitem><seg>bigram, code, find, frcode, locate, updatedb and xargs</seg></seglistitem>
</segmentedlist>

<variablelist><title>Short descriptions</title>

<varlistentry id="bigram">
<term><command>bigram</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils bigram"><primary sortas="b-bigram">bigram</primary></indexterm>
<para>was formerly used to produce locate databases.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="code">
<term><command>code</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils code"><primary sortas="b-code">code</primary></indexterm>
<para>was formerly used to produce locate
databases. It is the ancestor of frcode.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="find">
<term><command>find</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils find"><primary sortas="b-find">find</primary></indexterm>
<para>searches given directory trees for files matching the specified criteria.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="frcode">
<term><command>frcode</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils frcode"><primary sortas="b-frcode">frcode</primary></indexterm>
<para>is called by updatedb to compress the list of file names. It uses 
front-compression, reducing the database size by a factor of 4 to 5.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="locate">
<term><command>locate</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils locate"><primary sortas="b-locate">locate</primary></indexterm>
<para>searches through a database of file names,
and reports the names that contain a given string or match a given pattern.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="updatedb">
<term><command>updatedb</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils updatedb"><primary sortas="b-updatedb">updatedb</primary></indexterm>
<para>updates the locate database. It scans
the entire file system (including other file systems that are currently mounted,
unless told not to) and puts every file name it finds in the database.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry id="xargs">
<term><command>xargs</command></term>
<listitem>
<indexterm zone="ch-system-findutils xargs"><primary sortas="b-xargs">xargs</primary></indexterm>
<para>can be used to apply a given command to a list of files.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect2>

</sect1>