Re: Locate Vs Find

Jagadeesh Bhaskar P
2004-11-23T04:43:30Z

On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 22:22, Ankit Jain wrote:
> Which is more efficient? /if both perform the same
> work and are not different then why shoudl we have 2 ?

As far as I know, locate is based on a database storing locations of
file. It doesnot search physically throughout the directory hierarchy.
So it is many a time faster. But you have to update the database
periodically with an "updatedb" command. Otherwise even error locations
may be the result.

Find doesnt depend on any such databases. It searches throughout the
directory hierarchy. This case results are always more reliable, but
mostly slow.

It can be seen by "finding" a file from the "/" and "locating" the same.

I think that trade-off enough a reason!!

--
With regards,

Jagadeesh Bhaskar P
R&D Engineer
HCL Infosystems Ltd
Pondicherry
INDIA