Linux From Scratch - Version 6.1

Chapter 6. Installing Basic System Software

6.19. Findutils-4.2.23

The Findutils package contains programs to find files. These programs are provided to recursively search through a directory tree and to create, maintain, and search a database (often faster than the recursive find, but unreliable if the database has not been recently updated).

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 9.4 MB
Installation depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Gettext, Glibc, Grep, Make and Sed

6.19.1. Installation of Findutils

Prepare Findutils for compilation: 

./configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/lib/locate \
    --localstatedir=/var/lib/locate

The localstatedir option above changes the location of the locate database to be in /var/lib/locate, which is FHS-compliant.

Compile the package: 

make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Install the package: 

make install

6.19.2. Contents of Findutils

Installed programs: bigram, code, find, frcode, locate, updatedb, and xargs

Short Descriptions

bigram

Was formerly used to produce locate databases

code

Was formerly used to produce locate databases; it is the ancestor of frcode.

find

Searches given directory trees for files matching the specified criteria

frcode

Is called by updatedb to compress the list of file names; it uses front-compression, reducing the database size by a factor of four to five.

locate

Searches through a database of file names and reports the names that contain a given string or match a given pattern

updatedb

Updates the locate database; it scans the entire file system (including other file systems that are currently mounted, unless told not to) and puts every file name it finds into the database

xargs

Can be used to apply a given command to a list of files