strings(1) User Commands strings(1)
NAME
strings - find printable strings in an object or binary file
SYNOPSIS
strings [-a | -] [-t format | -o] [-n number | -number] [file...]
DESCRIPTION
The strings utility looks for ASCII strings in a binary file. A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing characters ending with a new-
line or a null character.
strings is useful for identifying random object files and many other things.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-a | - Look everywhere in the file for strings. If this flag is omitted, strings only looks in the initialized data space
of object files.
-n number | -number Use a number as the minimum string length rather than the default, which is 4.
-o Equivalent to -t d option.
-t format Write each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of the file. The format is dependent on the single
character used as the format option-argument:
d The offset will be written in decimal.
o The offset will be written in octal.
x The offset will be written in hexadecimal.
OPERANDS
The following operand is supported:
file A path name of a regular file to be used as input. If no file operand is specified, the strings utility will read from the stan-
dard input.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of strings: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWtoo |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|CSI |Enabled |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface Stability |Standard |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
od(1), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
NOTES
The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.
For backwards compatibility, the options -a and - are interchangeable.
SunOS 5.10 20 Dec 1996 strings(1)
