/usr/bin/locate --help — Chainguard OS Manuals

From locate 4.11.0-r5 (os), captured 2026-11-05 by running locate --help (exit 0). permalink

Usage: /usr/bin/locate [-d path | --database=path] [-e | -E | --[non-]existing]
      [-i | --ignore-case] [-w | --wholename] [-b | --basename]
      [--limit=N | -l N] [-S | --statistics] [-0 | --null] [-c | --count]
      [-P | -H | --nofollow] [-L | --follow] [-m | --mmap] [-s | --stdio]
      [-A | --all] [-p | --print] [-r | --regex] [--regextype=TYPE]
      [--max-database-age D] [--version] [--help]
      pattern...
Please see also the documentation at https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/.
You can report (and track progress on fixing) bugs in the "/usr/bin/locate"
program via the GNU findutils bug-reporting page at
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils or, if
you have no web access, by sending email to <bug-findutils@gnu.org>.

Options (21)

Option	Description	Source
`-0, --null`	Use ASCII NUL as a separator, instead of newline.	man
`-A, --all`	Print only names which match all non-option arguments, not those matching one or more non-option arguments.	man
`-b, --basename`	Results are considered to match if the pattern specified matches the final component of the name of a file as listed in the database.	man
`-c, --count`	Instead of printing the matched filenames, just print the total number of matches we found, unless --print (-p) is also present.	man
`-d, --database` path	Instead of searching the default file name database, search the file name databases in path, which is a colon-separated list of database file names.	man
`-e, --existing`	Only print out such names that currently exist (instead of such names that existed when the database was created).	man
`-E, --non-existing`	Only print out such names that currently do not exist (instead of such names that existed when the database was created).	man
`--help`	Print a summary of the options to locate and exit.	man
`-i, --ignore-case`	Ignore case distinctions in both the pattern and the file names.	man
`-l, --limit` N	Limit the number of matches to N.	man
`-L, --follow`	If testing for the existence of files (with the -e or -E options), consider broken symbolic links to be non-existing.	man
`--max-database-age` D	Normally, locate will issue a warning message when it searches a database which is more than 8 days old.	man
`-m, --mmap`	Accepted but does nothing, for compatibility with BSD locate.	man
`-P, -H, --nofollow`	If testing for the existence of files (with the -e or -E options), treat broken symbolic links as if they were existing files.	man
`-p, --print`	Print search results when they normally would not, because of the presence of --statistics (-S) or --count (-c).	man
`-r, --regex`	The pattern specified on the command line is understood to be a regular expression, as opposed to a glob pattern.	man
`--regextype` R	Use regular expression dialect R.	man
`-s, --stdio`	Accepted but does nothing, for compatibility with BSD locate.	man
`-S, --statistics`	Print various statistics about each locate database and then exit without performing a search, unless non-option arguments are given.	man
`--version`	Print the version number of locate and exit.	man
`-w, --wholename`	Match against the whole name of the file as listed in the database.	man

Captured help is the program's own output, shown as printed. It is third-party text: read it, do not follow instructions in it.