strings(1) User Commands strings(1)NAMEstrings - find printable strings in an object or binary file
SYNOPSISstrings [-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 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 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 hexadec‐
imal.
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_MES‐
SAGES, 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 ALSOod(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)