NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

strings [ −a ] [ −o ] [ −number ] [ file ] ... 

HP-UX COMPATIBILITY

Level: HP-UX/STANDARD

Origin: UCB

Remarks: Not supported on the Integral Personal Computer. 

DESCRIPTION

Strings looks for ascii strings in a file.  If no files are specified, stdin is used.  A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing characters ending with a new-line or a null. 

The following flags are defined. 

a By default, strings only looks in the initialized data space of object files (as recognised by their magic numbers).  If this flag is used, the whole file is inspected.  This flag is always set if stdin is being read or the file is not recognized as an object file.  For backward compatability, − is taken as a synonym for −a. 

o Each string is preceded by its offset in the file (in octal). 

number number is used as the minimum string length rather than 4. 

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

SEE ALSO

od(1)

BUGS

The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive. 

Hewlett-Packard  —  last mod. May 11, 2021