How to make locate output look like `ll` or `ls -la` but nicer?

Question

The locate command output is a little bland:

$ time locate etc/profile
/etc/profile
/etc/profile.d
/etc/profile.d/appmenu-qt5.sh
/etc/profile.d/apps-bin-path.sh
/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
/etc/profile.d/cedilla-portuguese.sh
/etc/profile.d/jdk.csh
/etc/profile.d/jdk.sh
/etc/profile.d/vte-2.91.sh

real    0m0.696s
user    0m0.671s
sys     0m0.024s

How can I give more information to it like ll or ls -la does? Perhaps include headings too?

Answer 1

Using xargs and ls:

$ locate -0 etc/profile | xargs -0 ls -ld
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  575 Oct 23  2015 /etc/profile
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 20 10:10 /etc/profile.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   40 Nov 30  2015 /etc/profile.d/appmenu-qt5.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  663 May 18  2016 /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1003 Dec 29  2015 /etc/profile.d/cedilla-portuguese.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   31 Oct 18  2017 /etc/profile.d/go.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  301 Feb 20  2013 /etc/profile.d/jdk.csh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  299 Feb 20  2013 /etc/profile.d/jdk.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  999 Aug 23  2017 /etc/profile.d/libvirt-uri.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1941 Mar 16  2016 /etc/profile.d/vte-2.91.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1557 Apr 15  2016 /etc/profile.d/Z97-byobu.sh

Answer 2

I created a script called llocate for this purpose:

$ time llocate etc/profile
ACCESS      OWNER  GROUP  SIZE  MODIFIED      NAME (updatdb last ran: 2018-07-01 11:30:05)
-rw-r--r--  root   root   575   Nov 12  2017  /etc/profile
drwxr-xr-x  root   root   4096  Jun  4 17:19  /etc/profile.d
-rw-r--r--  root   root   40    Feb 16  2017  /etc/profile.d/appmenu-qt5.sh
-rw-r--r--  root   root   580   Oct 18  2017  /etc/profile.d/apps-bin-path.sh
-rw-r--r--  root   root   663   May 18  2016  /etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh
-rw-r--r--  root   root   1003  Dec 29  2015  /etc/profile.d/cedilla-portuguese.sh
-rwxr-xr-x  root   root   301   Feb 20  2013  /etc/profile.d/jdk.csh
-rwxr-xr-x  root   root   299   Feb 20  2013  /etc/profile.d/jdk.sh
-rw-r--r--  root   root   1941  Mar 16  2016  /etc/profile.d/vte-2.91.sh
real    0m0.760s
user    0m0.754s
sys     0m0.020s

It takes .76 seconds to run versus .70 seconds for the regular locate command. The difference is negligible.

---

Bash script

The bash code is fairly straight forward. Copy the script below into the directory /home/YOUR_NAME/bin (you may have to create it first) or /usr/local/bin and mark it executable using:

chmod a+x /home/YOUR_NAME/bin/llocate

Here's the script llocate:

#!/bin/bash
NAME: llocate
PATH: /mnt/e/bin
DATE: May 22, 2018. Modified July 5, 2020.
DESC: Use locate command but format output like ll with headings
PARM: Parameter 1 = locate search string
UPDT: 2018-07-01 Format date with Time or Previous Year like ls -al.
2018-11-09 Filenames trunctated after first space.
2020-07-05 Speed up processing. Handle permission denied.
if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "First parameter must be full or partial file names to search for."
    exit 1
fi
tmpLine=$(locate "$1")
Was anything found?
if [[ ${#tmpLine} -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo "No files found. If files created today, did you run 'sudo updatedb' after?"
    exit 1
fi
LastRun=$(stat --printf=%y /var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db | sed 's/.[^\n]*//')
Build output with columns separated by "|" for column command
tmpForm="ACCESS|OWNER|GROUP|SIZE|MODIFIED|NAME (updatdb last ran: $LastRun)"$'\n'
ThisYear=$(date +%Y)
while read -r Line; do
StatLine=$(stat --printf='%A|%U|%G|%s|%Y|%N\n' "$Line" | sed "s/'//g")

IFS="|" Arr=($StatLine)
Seconds="${Arr[4]}"
[[ $Seconds == "" ]] && continue    # Permission denied

# Format date with time if it's this year, else use file's year
if [[ $(date -d @$Seconds +'%Y') == "$ThisYear" ]]; then
    HumanDate=$(date -d @$Seconds +'%b %_d %H:%M')
else
    HumanDate=$(date -d @$Seconds +'%b %_d  %Y')
fi

StatLine="${StatLine/$Seconds/$HumanDate}"
tmpForm="$tmpForm$StatLine"$'\n'


done <<< "$tmpLine"    # Read next locate line.
column -t -s '|' <<< "$tmpForm"
exit 0