NAME
strings
—
print the strings of printable
characters in files
SYNOPSIS
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 ...] |
DESCRIPTION
For each file specified, thestrings
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:
-a
|--all
- For ELF objects, scan the entire file for printable strings.
-e
encoding |--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.
-f
|--print-file-name
- Print the name of the file before each string.
-h
|--help
- Print a usage summary and exit.
-n
number |--bytes=
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.
-o
- Equivalent to specifying
-t
o. -t
radix |--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
-v
|--version
- Display a version identifier and exit.
EXIT STATUS
The strings
utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
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
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
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.
AUTHORS
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>.