| <html lang="en"> |
| <head> |
| <title>strings - GNU Binary Utilities</title> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> |
| <meta name="description" content="GNU Binary Utilities"> |
| <meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.13"> |
| <link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> |
| <link rel="prev" href="size.html#size" title="size"> |
| <link rel="next" href="strip.html#strip" title="strip"> |
| <link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> |
| <!-- |
| Copyright (C) 1991-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. |
| |
| Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document |
| under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 |
| or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; |
| with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no |
| Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the |
| section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. |
| |
| --> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> |
| <style type="text/css"><!-- |
| pre.display { font-family:inherit } |
| pre.format { font-family:inherit } |
| pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } |
| pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } |
| pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } |
| pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } |
| span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } |
| span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } |
| span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } |
| --></style> |
| </head> |
| <body> |
| <div class="node"> |
| <a name="strings"></a> |
| <p> |
| Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="strip.html#strip">strip</a>, |
| Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="size.html#size">size</a>, |
| Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="index.html#Top">Top</a> |
| <hr> |
| </div> |
| |
| <h2 class="chapter">7 strings</h2> |
| |
| <p><a name="index-strings-128"></a><a name="index-listings-strings-129"></a><a name="index-printing-strings-130"></a><a name="index-strings_002c-printing-131"></a> |
| <!-- man title strings print the sequences of printable characters in files --> |
| |
| <pre class="smallexample"> <!-- man begin SYNOPSIS strings --> |
| strings [<samp><span class="option">-afovV</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">-</span></samp><var>min-len</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-n</span></samp> <var>min-len</var>] [<samp><span class="option">--bytes=</span></samp><var>min-len</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-t</span></samp> <var>radix</var>] [<samp><span class="option">--radix=</span></samp><var>radix</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-e</span></samp> <var>encoding</var>] [<samp><span class="option">--encoding=</span></samp><var>encoding</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">--all</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">--print-file-name</span></samp>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-T</span></samp> <var>bfdname</var>] [<samp><span class="option">--target=</span></samp><var>bfdname</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-w</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">--include-all-whitespace</span></samp>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">-s</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">--output-separator</span></samp><var>sep_string</var>] |
| [<samp><span class="option">--help</span></samp>] [<samp><span class="option">--version</span></samp>] <var>file</var>... |
| <!-- man end --> |
| </pre> |
| <!-- man begin DESCRIPTION strings --> |
| <p>For each <var>file</var> given, <span class="sc">gnu</span> <samp><span class="command">strings</span></samp> prints the |
| printable character sequences that are at least 4 characters long (or |
| the number given with the options below) and are followed by an |
| unprintable character. |
| |
| <p>Depending upon how the strings program was configured it will default |
| to either displaying all the printable sequences that it can find in |
| each file, or only those sequences that are in loadable, initialized |
| data sections. If the file type in unrecognizable, or if strings is |
| reading from stdin then it will always display all of the printable |
| sequences that it can find. |
| |
| <p>For backwards compatibility any file that occurs after a command-line |
| option of just <samp><span class="option">-</span></samp> will also be scanned in full, regardless of |
| the presence of any <samp><span class="option">-d</span></samp> option. |
| |
| <p><samp><span class="command">strings</span></samp> is mainly useful for determining the contents of |
| non-text files. |
| |
| <!-- man end --> |
| <!-- man begin OPTIONS strings --> |
| <dl> |
| <dt><samp><span class="env">-a</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--all</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">-</span></samp><dd>Scan the whole file, regardless of what sections it contains or |
| whether those sections are loaded or initialized. Normally this is |
| the default behaviour, but strings can be configured so that the |
| <samp><span class="option">-d</span></samp> is the default instead. |
| |
| <p>The <samp><span class="option">-</span></samp> option is position dependent and forces strings to |
| perform full scans of any file that is mentioned after the <samp><span class="option">-</span></samp> |
| on the command line, even if the <samp><span class="option">-d</span></samp> option has been |
| specified. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-d</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--data</span></samp><dd>Only print strings from initialized, loaded data sections in the |
| file. This may reduce the amount of garbage in the output, but it |
| also exposes the strings program to any security flaws that may be |
| present in the BFD library used to scan and load sections. Strings |
| can be configured so that this option is the default behaviour. In |
| such cases the <samp><span class="option">-a</span></samp> option can be used to avoid using the BFD |
| library and instead just print all of the strings found in the file. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-f</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--print-file-name</span></samp><dd>Print the name of the file before each string. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">--help</span></samp><dd>Print a summary of the program usage on the standard output and exit. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-</span><var>min-len</var></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">-n </span><var>min-len</var></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--bytes=</span><var>min-len</var></samp><dd>Print sequences of characters that are at least <var>min-len</var> characters |
| long, instead of the default 4. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-o</span></samp><dd>Like ‘<samp><span class="samp">-t o</span></samp>’. Some other versions of <samp><span class="command">strings</span></samp> have <samp><span class="option">-o</span></samp> |
| act like ‘<samp><span class="samp">-t d</span></samp>’ instead. Since we can not be compatible with both |
| ways, we simply chose one. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-t </span><var>radix</var></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--radix=</span><var>radix</var></samp><dd>Print the offset within the file before each string. The single |
| character argument specifies the radix of the offset—‘<samp><span class="samp">o</span></samp>’ for |
| octal, ‘<samp><span class="samp">x</span></samp>’ for hexadecimal, or ‘<samp><span class="samp">d</span></samp>’ for decimal. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-e </span><var>encoding</var></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--encoding=</span><var>encoding</var></samp><dd>Select the character encoding of the strings that are to be found. |
| Possible values for <var>encoding</var> are: ‘<samp><span class="samp">s</span></samp>’ = single-7-bit-byte |
| characters (ASCII, ISO 8859, etc., default), ‘<samp><span class="samp">S</span></samp>’ = |
| single-8-bit-byte characters, ‘<samp><span class="samp">b</span></samp>’ = 16-bit bigendian, ‘<samp><span class="samp">l</span></samp>’ = |
| 16-bit littleendian, ‘<samp><span class="samp">B</span></samp>’ = 32-bit bigendian, ‘<samp><span class="samp">L</span></samp>’ = 32-bit |
| littleendian. Useful for finding wide character strings. (‘<samp><span class="samp">l</span></samp>’ |
| and ‘<samp><span class="samp">b</span></samp>’ apply to, for example, Unicode UTF-16/UCS-2 encodings). |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-T </span><var>bfdname</var></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--target=</span><var>bfdname</var></samp><dd><a name="index-object-code-format-132"></a>Specify an object code format other than your system's default format. |
| See <a href="Target-Selection.html#Target-Selection">Target Selection</a>, for more information. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-v</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">-V</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--version</span></samp><dd>Print the program version number on the standard output and exit. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-w</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--include-all-whitespace</span></samp><dd>By default tab and space characters are included in the strings that |
| are displayed, but other whitespace characters, such a newlines and |
| carriage returns, are not. The <samp><span class="option">-w</span></samp> option changes this so |
| that all whitespace characters are considered to be part of a string. |
| |
| <br><dt><samp><span class="env">-s</span></samp><dt><samp><span class="env">--output-separator</span></samp><dd>By default, output strings are delimited by a new-line. This option |
| allows you to supply any string to be used as the output record |
| separator. Useful with –include-all-whitespace where strings |
| may contain new-lines internally. |
| </dl> |
| |
| <!-- man end --> |
| </body></html> |
| |
