strings(1)							    strings(1)

NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     strings - find printable strings in an object file	or binary

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     strings [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -number ] filename	. . .

     or	the XPG4 format

     strings [ -a ] [ -t format	] [ -n number ]	filename . . .

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The strings command looks for ASCII strings in a binary file.  A string
     is	any sequence of	4 or more printing characters ending with a newline or
     a null character, or (if not in XPG4 mode)	any non-printing character.

     strings is	useful for identifying random object files and many other
     things.

     The following options are available:

     -a		 Look everywhere in the	file for strings.  If this flag	is
		 omitted, strings only looks in	the initialized	data space of
		 object	files.

     -o		 Precede each string by	its offset in the file.

     -number	 Use number as the minimum string length rather	than 4.

     The following are the options for the XPG4	command-line format:

     -a		 Look everywhere in the	file for strings.  If this flag	is
		 omitted, strings only looks in	the initialized	data space of
		 object	files.

     -t	format	 Precede each string by	its offset in the file.	The format is
		 specified by the format argument:
		 d Print the offset in decimal.
		 o Print the offset in octal.
		 x Print the offset in hexadecimal.

     -n	number	 Use number as the minimum string length rather	than 4.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     od(1)

NOTES    [Toc]    [Back]

     The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely	primitive.

     For the IRIX 6.5 release, this command was	changed	to have	slightly
     different semantics than the original command, to be XPG4-compliant.  The
     XPG4 semantics are	that a string is only considered to be a valid string
     if	it ends	with a NULL or newline character, or ends at the end of	a



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strings(1)							    strings(1)



     file.  The	original semantics were	that a string could be ended by	any
     non-printing character, or	end of file.

     As	of the 6.5.4 release, the default semantics have been returned to the
     original unix semantics, unless the _XPG environment variable is set to a
     value greater than	zero, in which case the	XPG4 semantics are used.


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