Created file - but cannot find with locate command?

[borderfox]

I have created a file on the ubuntu desktop. However, at the command line, if I enter the following....


locate testfile.txt OR

locate testfile


it doesn't provide the expected result (i.e. the location of the file) whereas if I try this with another file, it shows the file location.


Can anyone shed any light on this?

[ubiquitin.jf]

You need to run the command updatedb as root before you can find a recently created file using locate

[sisco311]

locate uses a database to read the filenames. The database is updated daily by a cron job. As ubiquitin.jf pointed it out, you can manually update the database with sudo updatedb.

[borderfox]

@ubiquitin.jf & sisco311: Thanks for your replies. I carried out a manual update as suggested. However, I still can't pull up this file. Is there any other reason why this would happen?

[WorMzy]

@ubiquitin.jf & sisco311: Thanks for your replies. I carried out a manual update as suggested. However, I still can't pull up this file. Is there any other reason why this would happen?

Yes. By default, updatedb only scans and indexes files on the root partition. Any filesystems mounted in /mount, as well as any files stored in /proc, /dev, /sys, /tmp or /var/spool, will not be scanned and subsequently won't be added to the database.

[borderfox]

Yes. By default, updatedb only scans and indexes files on the root partition. Any filesystems mounted in /mount, as well as any files stored in /proc, /dev, /sys, /tmp or /var/spool, will not be scanned and subsequently won't be added to the database.

Excelllent - thanks for your help.

[sisco311]

You could use find to search for files. http://mywiki.wooledge.org/UsingFind

Or create a local database:

updatedb -l 0 -o ./my-db -U /path/to/dir
locate -d ./my-db PATTERN