off-topic: mlocate have some advantages over locate. it does a partial scan on modified files only, which makes it's updatedb much faster and disk friendly. u may already be using it if u have it installed, since mlocate has a higher score in the update-alternatives system than the original locate. Cheers, Tao -- http://huangtao.me/ http://www.google.com/profiles/UniIsland School of Mathematical Science Peking University