I am writing a bash shell script which removes a file using the following command
rm abc.xsl
I handled the case of getting the prompts and providing the required 'y' or 'n' inputs.
In order to verify that the file has been removed, I validate the same by running the locate command in the following manner
locate */abc.xsl
Note : the desired file is present at a specific directory, so in my case this particular command is not giving me any other file's address
I noticed that despite of file being deleted, the locate command is still reflecting the deleted file's path.
I debugged the issue by manually executing each of the required commands
FYR
admin@sharad-server$ pwd
/usr/local/myserver/myapplication/lib
admin@sharad-server$ rm abc.xsl
rm: remove write-protected regular file 'abc.xsl'? y
admin@sharad-server$ locate */abc.xsl
/usr/local/myserver/myapplication/lib/abc.xsl
The file was deleted as it was not reflected when I executed the ls command and also the cat command as follows
admin@sharad-server$ cat /usr/local/myserver/myapplication/lib/abc.xsl
cat: /usr/local/myserver/myapplication/lib/abc.xsl: No such file or directory
FYR my application is deployed on GCP and my server's platform details are as follows:
admin@sharad-server$ uname -a
Linux sharad-server 3.10.0-1127.8.2.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue May 12 16:57:42 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
The details of the shell where all these commands were executed in a standalone manner are as follows:
admin@sharad-server$ ps -p $$
PID TTY TIME CMD
32296 pts/0 00:00:00 bash
Why the locate command is still reflecting the deleted file's path?
Update:
As per one of the suggestion I tried the updatedb command as well but it gave me an error.
admin@sharad-server$ updatedb
updatedb: can not open a temporary file for `/var/lib/mlocate/mlocate.db'
Final Update:
The updatedb command worked with the root user and has successfully updated the locate command functioning.
For performance reasons, Locate use an index where all file tree structure is stored to find something...
This file need to be updated with the command updatedb #root permision needed.
If you want to find a file or directory performing "live analyses" you'll need to use find.