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.\" Copyright (c) 2007 S.Sam Arun Raj
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\" $Id: strings.1 3360 2016-01-24 18:34:06Z jkoshy $
.\"
.Dd January 24, 2016
.Dt STRINGS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm strings
.Nd "print the strings of printable characters in files"
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl a | Fl -all
.Op Fl e Ar encoding | Fl -encoding= Ns Ar encoding
.Op Fl f | Fl -print-file-name
.Op Fl h | Fl -help
.Op Fl n Ar number | Fl -bytes= Ns Ar number | Fl Ar number
.Op Fl o
.Op Fl t Ar radix | Fl -radix= Ns Ar radix
.Op Fl v | Fl -version
.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
For each
.Ar file
specified, the
.Nm
utility prints contiguous sequences of printable
characters that are at least
.Va n
characters long and are followed by an unprintable character.
The default value of
.Va n
is 4.
By default, the
.Nm
utility only scans the initialized and loaded sections of ELF objects;
for other file types, the entire file is scanned.
The
.Nm
utility is mainly used for determining the contents of non-text files.
.Pp
If no file name is specified as an argument, standard input is read.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl a | Fl -all
For ELF objects, scan the entire file for printable strings.
.It Fl e Ar encoding | Fl -encoding= Ns Ar encoding
Select the character encoding to be used while searching for strings.
Valid values for argument
.Ar encoding
are:
.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
.It Ar s
for single 7-bit-byte characters (ASCII, ISO 8859).
.It Ar S
for single 8-bit-byte characters.
.It Ar l
for 16-bit little-endian.
.It Ar b
for 16-bit big-endian.
.It Ar L
for 32-bit little-endian.
.It Ar B
for 32-bit big-endian.
.El
The default is to assume that characters are encoded using a single
7-bit byte.
.It Fl f | Fl -print-file-name
Print the name of the file before each string.
.It Fl h | Fl -help
Print a usage summary and exit.
.It Xo
.Fl n Ar number |
.Fl -bytes= Ns Ar number |
.Fl Ar number
.Xc
Print the contiguous character sequence of at least
.Ar number
characters long, instead of the default of 4 characters.
Argument
.Ar number
should specify a positive decimal integer.
.It Fl o
Equivalent to specifying
.Fl t Ar o .
.It Fl t Ar radix | Fl -radix= Ns Ar radix
Print the offset from the start of the file before each string
using the specified radix.
Valid values for argument
.Ar radix
are:
.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
.It Ar d
for decimal
.It Ar o
for octal
.It Ar x
for hexadecimal
.El
.It Fl v | Fl -version
Display a version identifier and exit.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std
.Sh EXAMPLES
To display strings in
.Pa /bin/ls
use:
.Dl "$ strings /bin/ls"
.Pp
To display strings in all sections of
.Pa /bin/ln
use:
.Dl "$ strings -a /bin/ln"
.Pp
To display strings in all sections of
.Pa /bin/cat
prefixed with the filename and the offset within the file use:
.Dl "$ strings -a -f -t x /bin/cat"
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr ar 1 ,
.Xr nm 1 ,
.Xr objdump 1 ,
.Xr ranlib ,
.Xr readelf 1 ,
.Xr size 1
.Sh HISTORY
The first FreeBSD
.Nm
utility appeared in
.Fx v3.
It was later discontinued in
.Fx v5 ,
when i386-only a.out format was dropped in favor of ELF.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An -nosplit
The
.Nm
utility was re-written by
.An S.Sam Arun Raj Aq Mt samarunraj@gmail.com .
This manual page was written by
.An S.Sam Arun Raj Aq Mt samarunraj@gmail.com .
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