A decent modern filesystem already supports journaling (shame on you ext2). Why not try reiserfs- the locate command will only return OLDER matching files (since the last time updated ran which is pretty much a hashing of File::Find). So, in terms of effiiciency, using locate is just the same as using File::Find if you use it ONCE- searching the same thing is the only optimized use of this function.

In your case, searching with locate is not really all that more efficient than File::Find since the updatedb (that's what it's named) will be updated by default every day (at midnight or somethin') which runs a File::Find type directory tree walker anyway and hashes filenames in a DB. In this light, I strongly recommend ReiserFS not just to Poetic Justice who needs a search every week, but to everybody. In this case File::Find becomes obsolete! (There is a filesystem level call for file searching.) ReiserFS arranges the filenames in a tree which is easily searched. You can only benefit from this upgrade. This simple and logical FS tweak makes even such things as open(FILE,'</dir/dir2/dir3/file'); potentially faster! As soon as I hear the words "file search", I must say- REISERFS!

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