RE: Interactively finding file in a list of directories

[Drew Adams]

> > For example, assume there are 4 different files all named "find.jsp"
> > in different directories, and I would like to find a particular one. I
> > would do M-x find-resource, type "find", hit TAB, it I would see a
> > list that looks something like:
>
> There is an interface to the UNIX locate database (M-x locate RET
> pattern RET). Regularly, once a day or once a weekly, the whole disk
> is searched and all path names, files and directories, but no
> "special files," are recorded in a database or hash file. The command
> locate takes as argument a search pattern that allows a few
> metacharacters and looks up this pattern in the database, so it's
> much faster than find. Executing locate as a shell command, you could
> filter a bit more with grep what locate returns ...

The link I gave earlier provides info on several such Emacs interfaces to a
UNIX or GNU/Linux `locate' database:
http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/LocateFilesAnywhere.