NAME

strings — print the strings of printable characters in files

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

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:

-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.

The default is to assume that characters are encoded using a single 7-bit byte.

-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:

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

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

SEE ALSO

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

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>.