strings(1)

NAME
     strings - find printable strings in an object file or binary

SYNOPSIS
     strings [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -number ] filename . . .

     or the XPG4 format

     strings [ -a ] [ -t format ] [ -n number ] filename . . .

DESCRIPTION
     The strings command 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.

     The following options are available:

     -a          Look everywhere in the file for strings.  If this flag is
                 omitted, strings only looks in the initialized data space of
                 object files.

     -o          Precede each string by its offset in the file.

     -number     Use number as the minimum string length rather than 4.

     The following are the options for the XPG4 command-line format:

     -a          Look everywhere in the file for strings.  If this flag is
                 omitted, strings only looks in the initialized data space of
                 object files.

     -t format   Precede each string by its offset in the file. The format is
                 specified by the format argument:
                 d Print the offset in decimal.
                 o Print the offset in octal.
                 x Print the offset in hexadecimal.

     -n number   Use number as the minimum string length rather than 4.

SEE ALSO
     od(1)

NOTES
     The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.