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strings(1) General Commands Manual strings(1) NAME strings - Finds strings in an ASCII or binary file. SYNOPSIS strings [-ao] [-t format] [-n number] [file...] Obsolescent syntax strings [-] [-t format] [-number] [file...] STANDARDS Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan- dards as follows: strings: XPG4, XPG4-UNIX Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about in- dustry standards and associated tags. OPTIONS Searches an entire object file, rather than just the initialized data space. Sets the minimum string length to number rather than the de- fault of 4. Precedes each string by its offset (in octal) in the file. Writes each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of the file. The format is dependent on the single character used as the for- mat argument, as follows: The offset is written in decimal. The offset is written in octal. The offset is written in hexadecimal. Sets the minimum string length to number rather than the default of 4. (Obso- lescent) Searches an entire object file, rather than just the initial- ized data space. (Obsolescent) OPERANDS The name of a file to be searched for strings. If you do not specify a file argument, strings reads from stan- dard input. DESCRIPTION A string is any sequence of 4 or more printing characters ending with a newline or null character. The strings command is useful for identify- ing random object files. [DIGITAL] Unless the -a option is given, strings only looks in the initialized data space of object files. NOTES [DIGITAL] The -t format option should be used when multiple files are specified as input. Without this option, there is no way to determine which string is associated with which file. EXIT STATUS The following exit values are returned: Successful completion. An er- ror occurred. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES The following environment variables affect the execution of strings: Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. If LANG is unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used. If any of the internationalization variables contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the other internationalization variables. Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to mult- byte characters in arguments and input files) and to identify printable strings. Determines the locale for the format and contents of diagnos- tic messages written to standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues for the processing of LC_MESSAGES. SEE ALSO Commands: nm(1), od(1) Standards: standards(5) strings(1)