opendarwin man page for strings

STRINGS(1)						      General Commands Manual							STRINGS(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
       strings [ - ] [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -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 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).

       -o     Preceded each string by its offset in the file (in decimal).

       -number
	      The decimal number is used as the minimum string length rather than the default of 4.

SEE ALSO
       od(1)

BUGS
       The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.

Apple Computer, Inc.						 October 23, 1997							STRINGS(1)