strings(1) strings(1)
NAME
strings - find the printable strings in a object, or other binary, file
SYNOPSIS
strings [ - ] [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -t format ] [ -number ] [ -n 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 file arguments may be of the form libx.a(foo.o), to request infor-
mation about only that object file and not the entire library. (Typi-
cally this argument must be quoted, ``libx.a(foo.o)'', to get it past
the shell.)
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).
-- This option causes strings to treat all the following arguments
as files.
-o Preceded each string by its offset in the file (in decimal).
-t format
Write each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of
the file. The format shall be dependent on the single character
used as the format option-argument:
d The offset shall be written in decimal.
o The offset shall be written in octal.
x The offset shall be written in hexadecimal.
-number
The decimal number is used as the minimum string length rather
than the default of 4.
-n number
Specify the minimum string length, where the number argument is
a positive decimal integer. The default shall be 4.
-arch arch_type
Specifies the architecture, arch_type, of the file for
strings(1) to operate on when the file is a universal file.
(See arch(3) for the currently know arch_types.) The arch_type
can be "all" to operate on all architectures in the file.
SEE ALSO
od(1)
BUGS
The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.
Apple Computer, Inc. September 11, 2006 strings(1)
Mac OS X 10.7 - Generated Wed Aug 10 15:42:53 CDT 2011