'\" te
.\"  Copyright 1989 AT&T  Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited  All Rights Reserved  Portions Copyright (c) 2007, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved
.\" Sun Microsystems, Inc. gratefully acknowledges The Open Group for permission to reproduce portions of its copyrighted documentation. Original documentation from The Open Group can be obtained online at
.\" http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/.
.\" The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their documentation. In the following statement, the phrase "this text" refers to portions of the system documentation. Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in the Sun OS Reference Manual, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.
.\"  This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.
.\" The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").  You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
.\" You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
.\" When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE.  If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
.TH STRINGS 1 "Apr 13, 2007"
.SH NAME
strings \- find printable strings in an object or binary file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
\fBstrings\fR [\fB-a\fR | \fB-\fR]
     [\fB-t\fR \fIformat\fR | \fB-o\fR] [\fB-n\fR \fInumber\fR | \fB-number\fR]  [\fB-N\fR \fIname\fR]  [\fIfile\fR]...
.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
The \fBstrings\fR utility looks for \fBASCII\fR strings in a binary file. A
string is any sequence of 4 or more printing characters ending with a NEWLINE
or a \fBNULL\fR character.
.sp
.LP
\fBstrings\fR is useful for identifying random object files and many other
things.
.sp
.LP
By default, strings looks at program sections that are loaded in memory.
Program sections are identified by the section type \fBSHT_PROGBITS\fR.
Sections that are loaded in memory are identified by the section flag
\fBSHF_ALLOC\fR. Use \fBelfdump\fR(1)  to display complete section information
for a file.
.sp
.LP
All sections can be inspected with the \fB-a\fR option. Individual sections can
be inspected with the \fB-N\fR option.
.SH OPTIONS
.sp
.LP
The following options are supported:
.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB-a\fR | \fB\(mi\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
Look everywhere in the file for strings.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB-n\fR \fInumber\fR \fB|\fR \fB-\fR\fInumber\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
Use a \fInumber\fR as the minimum string length rather than the default, which
is \fB4\fR.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB-N\fR \fIname\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
Look only in ELF section name. See \fBelfdump\fR(1). Multiple \fB-N\fR options
can be specified to inspect multiple sections.
.sp
If the \fB-a\fR or \fB-\fRoption is specified, all \fB-N\fR options are
ignored .
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB-o\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
Equivalent to \fB\fR\fB-t\fR \fBd\fR option.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB-t\fR \fBformat\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 23n
Write each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of the file. The
format is dependent on the single character used as the \fIformat\fR
option-argument:
.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fBd\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 5n
The offset is written in decimal.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fBo\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 5n
The offset is written in octal.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fBx\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 5n
The offset is written in hexadecimal.
.RE

.RE

.SH OPERANDS
.sp
.LP
The following operand is supported:
.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB\fIfile\fR\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 8n
A path name of a regular file to be used as input. If no \fIfile\fR operand is
specified, the \fBstrings\fR utility reads from the standard input.
.RE

.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
.sp
.LP
See \fBenviron\fR(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of \fBstrings\fR: \fBLANG\fR, \fBLC_ALL\fR,
\fBLC_CTYPE\fR, \fBLC_MESSAGES\fR, and \fBNLSPATH\fR.
.SH EXIT STATUS
.sp
.LP
The following exit values are returned:
.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB0\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 6n
Successful completion.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.na
\fB\fB>0\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 6n
An error occurred.
.RE

.SH ATTRIBUTES
.sp
.LP
See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
.sp

.sp
.TS
box;
c | c
l | l .
ATTRIBUTE TYPE	ATTRIBUTE VALUE
_
CSI	Enabled
_
Interface Stability	See below.
.TE

.sp
.LP
The \fBstrings\fR utility, including all options except \fB-N\fR, are specified
by standards. See \fBstandards\fR(5). The \fB-N\fR option is not currently
specified by any standard.
.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
\fBelfdump\fR(1), \fBod\fR(1), \fBattributes\fR(5), \fBenviron\fR(5),
\fBstandards\fR(5)
.SH NOTES
.sp
.LP
The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.
.sp
.LP
For backwards compatibility, the options \fB-a\fR and \fB\(mi\fR are
interchangeable.