lk/basics/locating.md

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locating
Documentation
Basics

Type

type shows what kind of thing you're running, be it an alias, function, or binary program.

type cmus

Whereis the Program

Ask where the angband program is, along with all its configuration files:

whereis angband

Also which shows where a binary file (the program) is,

which cmus

Search Instantly with plocate

You can search every file on the computer instantly by installing plocate.

Once installed, run sudo updatedb to create the database of (nearly) every file on the computer.

Check how big the database is:

du -h /var/lib/plocate/plocate.db

Once you have the database, you can find nearly any file instantly.

  • Search for gifs: locate .gif
  • Search for gifs in the /usr/ directory: locate /usr/ .gif
  • Search for jpg images with 'dog' or 'Dog' in the name: locate -i dog jpg
  • Search for videos: plocate --regex '.mp4$|.mkv$|.wmv$|.webm$|.mov$|.avi$'

For best results, run updatedb regularly, perhaps in crontab.

Search More Places

plocate will not search /tmp/, because nobody cares about those files, and won't search inside /mnt/, because that's where USB sticks get mounted, so the files keep changing as USB sticks come and go.

Change where plocate searches by editing the configuration file at /etc/updatedb.conf.

By default, the /mnt directory is 'pruned' from the database. So if you want to search /mnt for videos, remove the word /mnt from the configuration file.

cat /etc/updatedb.conf
sudo sed 's#/mnt/##' /etc/updatedb.conf
sudo updatedb
plocate --regex '.mp4$|.mkv$|.wmv$|.webm$|.mov$|.avi$'