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strings(1)


strings -- find printable strings in an object file or binary

Synopsis

strings [-a] [-o] [-n number |-number] [-t format] filename...

Description

The strings command looks for ASCII strings in a binary file. A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing characters ending with a newline or a null character.

strings is useful for identifying random object files and many other things.

The following options are available:


-a
Look everywhere in the file for strings. If this flag is omitted, strings only looks in the initialized data space of object files.

-o
Precede each string by its offset in the file.

-n number
Use number as the minimum string length rather than 4.

-t format
Precede each string by its byte offset from the start of the file. The byte offset is displayed in the format specified by the single-character format argument: ``d'' for decimal, ``o'' for octal, and ``x'' for hexadecimal.
Options may be delimited by ``--'' where appropriate to avoid ambiguity.

Exit codes

On successful completion strings returns 0. Otherwise a value of >0 is returned.

References

od(1)

Notices

The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.

For backwards compatibility, -number can be used in place of -n number. Similarly, the -a and a - option are interchangeable. The - and the -number variations are obsolescent and may be removed in a future release.


© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004