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user784637
Asked: 2011-12-29 10:02:44 +0800 CST

How do you get details from the output of the locate command?

  • 772

When I run the ls -l command I get details about the files in the current directory like permissions, owner, group, file size.

Is there a way I can get these same details instead of just the location of the file when I run locate?

bash

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The locate database do not contain information other that names, so you should run some other tool, like ls, on locate output

    lsloc() {
  locate "$@" | 
    while read -r name; do
      ls -ld "$name"
    done
}
lsloc pattern
    • 5

  2. Pipe the output of locate to xargs (adding ls -l as parameters to xargs). This lets you use whatever options you need with either command. By also passing the -0 (dash-zero) option to both commands, you also protect against unintended interpretations of blanks or newlines in filenames. For example, to get the details of all .iso files on my system:

    locate -0 -r '.*.iso$' | xargs -0 ls -l
    • 5

  3. Use a subshell

    ls -l "`locate -b 'search_pattern'`"

    Or

    ls -lh "$(locate -b 'search_pattern')"

    You can add a function to ~/.bashrc if you wish

    function lsloc () { ls -l "$(locate -b "$1") ;}

    You then 

    lsloc "search pattern"
    • 3