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STRINGS(1) General Commands Manual STRINGS(1)

strings — print the strings of printable characters in files

strings [-a | --all] [-e encoding | --encoding=encoding] [-f | --print-file-name] [-h | --help] [-n number | --bytes=number | -number] [-o] [-t radix | --radix=radix] [-v | --version] [file ...]

For each file specified, the strings utility prints contiguous sequences of printable characters that are at least n characters long and are followed by an unprintable character. The default value of n is 4. By default, the strings utility only scans the initialized and loaded sections of ELF objects; for other file types, the entire file is scanned. The strings utility is mainly used for determining the contents of non-text files.

If no file name is specified as an argument, standard input is read.

The following options are available:

|
For ELF objects, scan the entire file for printable strings.
encoding | encoding
Select the character encoding to be used while searching for strings. Valid values for argument encoding are:
s
for single 7-bit-byte characters (ASCII, ISO 8859).
S
for single 8-bit-byte characters.
l
for 16-bit little-endian.
b
for 16-bit big-endian.
L
for 32-bit little-endian.
B
for 32-bit big-endian.
The default is to assume that characters are encoded using a single 7-bit byte.
|
Print the name of the file before each string.
|
Print a usage summary and exit.
number | number | -number
Print the contiguous character sequence of at least number characters long, instead of the default of 4 characters. Argument number should specify a positive decimal integer.
Equivalent to specifying -t o.
radix | radix
Print the offset from the start of the file before each string using the specified radix. Valid values for argument radix are:
d
for decimal
o
for octal
x
for hexadecimal
|
Display a version identifier and exit.

The strings utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

To display strings in /bin/ls use:

$ strings /bin/ls

To display strings in all sections of /bin/ln use:

$ strings -a /bin/ln

To display strings in all sections of /bin/cat prefixed with the filename and the offset within the file use:

$ strings -a -f -t x /bin/cat

ar(1), nm(1), objdump(1), ranlib, readelf(1), size(1)

The first FreeBSD strings utility appeared in FreeBSD v3. It was later discontinued in FreeBSD v5, when i386-only a.out format was dropped in favor of ELF.

The strings utility was re-written by S.Sam Arun Raj <samarunraj@gmail.com>. This manual page was written by S.Sam Arun Raj <samarunraj@gmail.com>.

January 24, 2016 FreeBSD-13.0