strings(1) [osx man page]

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)

STRINGS(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						STRINGS(1)

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, 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.

     -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

     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>.

BSD
								 December 19, 2011							       BSD