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 charac-
ters ending with a newline 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 sin-
gle 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 standard 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 attri-
butes:
____________________________________________________________
| 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 primi-
tive.
For backwards compatibility, the options -a and - are inter-
changeable.
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