Findutils (4.1):
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/findutils/
Findutils Patch (4.1):
ftp://ftp.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs-packages/4.0/
http://ftp.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs-packages/4.0/
Last checked against version 4.1.
bigram, code, find, frcode, locate, updatedb and xargs
bigram is used together with code to produce older-style locate databases. To learn more about these last three programs, read the locatedb.5 manual page.
code is the ancestor of frcode. It was used in older-style locate databases.
The find program searches for files in a directory hierarchy which match a certain criteria. If no criteria is given, it lists all files in the current directory and its subdirectories.
frcode is called by updatedb to compress the list of file names using front-compression, which reduces the database size by a factor of 4 to 5.
locate scans a database which contains all files and directories on a filesystem. This program lists the files and directories in this database matching a certain criteria. If a user is looking for a file this program will scan the database and tell him exactly where the files he requested are located. This only makes sense if the locate database is fairly up-to-date, else it will provide out-of-date information.
The updatedb program updates the locate database. It scans the entire file system (including other file systems that are currently mounted unless it is told not to do so) and puts every directory and file it finds into the database that's used by the locate program, which retrieves this information. It's good practice to update this database once a day to have it up-to-date whenever it is needed.
The xargs command applies a command to a list of files. If there is a need to perform the same command on multiple files, a list can be created that names all those files (one per line) and xargs can perform that command on those files.
Last checked against version 4.1.
Bash: sh
Binutils: ar, as, ld, ranlib
Diffutils: cmp
Fileutils: chmod, cp, install, mv, rm
Grep: egrep, grep
Gcc: cc1, collect2, cpp0, gcc
Make: make
Patch: patch
Sed: sed
Sh-utils: basename, date, echo, hostname
Textutils: cat, tr