[ALUG] 'locate' isn't always helpful, how to do better?

[(Ted Harding)]

On 22-Feb-07 Eur Ing Chris Green wrote:
> While the 'locate' command is very useful at times, especially if you
> have lost a specific file it's much less useful when looking for, for
> example, a directory which has a rather common name.
> 
> E.g. I was just trying to find where I have bits of vmware installed,
> doing a 'locate vmware' just produces zillions of lines of output. I
> don't (in this case) want to know all the files which are located
> somewhere below a 'vmware' directory, I just want to know the location
> of the directory.
> 
> I know I can use an RE in locate but it's not all *that* simple to
> come up with an RE to do it.
> 
> I could also use 'find' which would get me exactly the result I want
> with a fairly straightforward command, but it would take ages.
> 
> What I really want is a 'find' that uses the locate database, I'm
> surprised no one has written one - or have they?
> 
> -- 
> Chris Green

Just realised that my previous reply falls far short of giving
all directories which contain a file or subdirectory with "vmware"
in the name; only those where the name ends with "vmware".
I think the following does better (though you still get a bit more
than you bargain for):


for i in `locate vmware` ; do
  if [ -d $i ] ; then echo $i ; fi ; done |
  sort -u

/etc/vmware
/etc/vmware/state
/etc/vmware/vmnet1
/etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd
/etc/vmware/vmnet1/smb
/etc/vmware/vmnet1/smb/private
/etc/vmware/vmnet1/smb/var
/etc/vmware/vmnet1/smb/var/locks
/home/ted/.vmware
/home/ted/vmware
/home/ted/vmware/win98
/home/ted/vmware/win98B
/usr/lib/vmware
/usr/lib/vmware/configurator
/usr/lib/vmware/floppies
/usr/lib/vmware/help
/usr/lib/vmware/modules
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/enterprise-2.2.17-14-RH7.0-update
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/enterprise-2.2.17-14-RH7.0-update/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/smp-2.2.1
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/smp-2.2.1/objects
[...]
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5-15
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5-15/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5-22
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5-22/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.5/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.9-19mdk
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.2.9-19mdk/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.0.SuSE-7.1
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.0.SuSE-7.1/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.2-2-RH7.1
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.2-2-RH7.1/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.3-20mdk-8.0
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary/up-2.4.3-20mdk-8.0/objects
/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
/usr/lib/vmware/smb
/usr/lib/vmware/smb/codepages
/usr/lib/vmware/xkeymap
/usr/share/doc/vmware

[125 lines in all]

For instance, /usr/lib/vmware/smb contains only the subdirectory
/usr/lib/vmware/smb/codepages, so that output is superfluous.
However, testing for that situation is more complicated ...


Hmmm...
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
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Date: 22-Feb-07                                       Time: 12:01:55
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