Unix filesystem – devil’s in the details

Kelly McNeill writes “Ever used the Unix “locate” command? It was a wonderful thing. It let you instantaneously search a database of all the files on your system and quickly find what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, that’s no longer true. Try running “locate kppp” or “locate mozilla.” You get hundreds — if not thousands of hits. Now you can get clever with regular expressions and filter out all the .xpm’s, .html’s and whatnot, and maybe the list will become manageable. But screwing up “locate” is just the tip of the iceberg.”