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locate 
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The venerable "find" utility can ferret out any and all files.
However, it is slow because it has to traverse the directory
structure, file by file.  "slocate", like the "Spotlight" feature
on a Mac searches an indexed database of the files. locate fails
on newly created files and will incorrectly display recently deleted
files. 


$ locate file 	#equivalent to *file*

flags:
  -c 	count matching entries
  -i 	case insensitve
  -S    display the database 
  -r    located only files with the exact name "file"

For Mac OS:

The database is built once a week by the OS. You can rebuild it.

$ sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

This may time some time to rebuild the data base.