sunos man page for strings

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)