STRINGS(1)

NAME
strings - find the printable strings in a object, or other binary, file

SYNOPSIS
strings [ - ] [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -t format ] [ -number ] [ -n number ] [--] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
Strings looks for ASCII strings in a binary file or standard input. Strings is useful for identifying random object files and many other things. A string is any sequence of 4 (the default) or more printing characters [ending at, but not including, any other character or EOF]. Unless the - flag is given, strings looks in all sections of the object files except the (__TEXT,__text) section. If no files are specified standard input is read.

The file arguments may be of the form libx.a(foo.o), to request information about only that object file and not the entire library. (Typically this argument must be quoted, ``libx.a(foo.o)'', to get it past the shell.)

The options to strings(1) are:

-a  This option causes strings to look for strings in all sections of the object file (including the (__TEXT,__text) section.

-   This option causes strings to look for strings in all bytes of the files (the default for non-object files).

--  This option causes strings to treat all the following arguments as files.

-o  Preceded each string by its offset in the file (in decimal).

-t format
    Write each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of the file. The format shall be dependent on the single character used as the format option-argument:

d   The offset shall be written in decimal.

o   The offset shall be written in octal.

x   The offset shall be written in hexadecimal.

-number
    The decimal number is used as the minimum string length rather than the default of 4.

-n number
    Specify the minimum string length, where the number argument is a positive decimal integer. The default shall be 4.

-arch arch_type
    Specifies the architecture, arch_type, of the file for strings(1) to operate on when the file is a universal file. (See arch(3) for the currently know arch_types.) The arch_type can be "all" to operate on all architectures in the file.

SEE ALSO
od(1)

BUGS
The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.