STRINGS(1)						      General Commands Manual							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 with a newline or a null.  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.   (Typ-
       ically 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, which is the default.

SEE ALSO

       od(1)

BUGS

       The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.

Apple Computer, Inc.						September 11, 2006							STRINGS(1)