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I made the mistake of copying the same files to different partitions with good intentions of pruning (deleting) them from the source or target(s) later. Now when I try to locate them I get too many results from locate command:

rick@alien:~$ locate "display-auto-brightness"
/etc/cron.d/display-auto-brightness
/home/rick/Pictures/display-auto-brightness conky.png
/home/rick/Pictures/display-auto-brightness systray.png
/home/rick/Pictures/display-auto-brightness-config 1.png
/home/rick/Pictures/ps display-auto-brightness.png
/lib/systemd/system-sleep/display-auto-brightness
/mnt/e/etc/cron.d/display-auto-brightness
/mnt/e/lib/systemd/system-sleep/display-auto-brightness
/mnt/e/usr/local/bin/display-auto-brightness
/usr/local/bin/display-auto-brightness

The locate command is automatically placing the * wild card after the search string and returning extra undesired results. The .png files should not be returned.

Why is locate returning too many results?

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1 Answer 1

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The locate command is automatically placing the * wild card after the search string and returning extra undesired results.

That is the default behaviour of locate. See man locate:

If any PATTERN contains no globbing characters, locate  behaves  as  if
the pattern were *PATTERN*.

To match only against the filename, explicitly set a glob in the path component:

locate '*/display-auto-brightness'

Or use a regex and the --basename option for matching an exact filename:

locate --basename --regex '^display-auto-brightness$'

Or, given the results you have shown, you could get away with just asking for paths that contain display-auto-brightness at the end:

locate --regex 'display-auto-brightness$'

I'll leave it you to use this in a script looping over each filename in a directory.

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  • If acceptable to you I propose changing the question to "How to prevent locate from finding too many files" using locate 'display-auto-brightness' example. Then I would accept your answer as is. I'll post a new self-answered question later after writing script that finds clones.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Mar 29, 2018 at 23:47
  • Sure, but you can just post and accept your answer to this question too
    – muru
    Mar 30, 2018 at 0:18
  • I want you to get credit for locate --regex 'display-auto-brightness$' I also think that micro-component of the project will benefit other users where as the bigger three way sync of files only interests a few people.
    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Mar 30, 2018 at 0:21

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