How to harvest files from several directories - CLI

[HermanAB]

You got to learn how to use 'find'. Locate only searches for things, it cannot execute commands. If you know how to use find, then you almost never need to use a loop.

[HiImTye]

and what if the database that locate uses is not up to date? find doesn't care about it.

you can make a tempdb, here's some examples http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2109455 (either of the cleanFilenames scripts)
you could easily alias the updatedb command to feed it a set of folders