strings (Unix)

strings
	The strings command
Written in	C
Operating system	Unix, Unix-like, Plan 9, Inferno
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command
License	Plan 9: MIT License

In computer software, strings is a program in Unix, Plan 9, Inferno, and Unix-like operating systems that finds and prints the strings of printable characters in files. The files can be of regular text files or binary files such as executables. It can be used on object files and core dumps. strings is mainly useful for determining the contents of non-text files.

Overview

Strings are recognized by looking for sequences of at least 4 (by default) printable characters terminating in a NUL character (that is, null-terminated strings). Some implementations provide options for determining what is recognized as a printable character, which is useful for finding non-ASCII and wide character text. By default, it only prints the strings from the initialized and loaded sections of object files; for other types of files, it prints the strings from the whole file.

Common usage includes piping its output to grep and fold or redirecting the output to a file.^[1]

It is part of the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), and has been ported to other operating systems including Windows.^[2]

Example

Using strings to print sequences of characters that are at least 8 characters long (this command prints the system's BIOS information; should be run as root):

dd if=/dev/mem bs=1k skip=768 count=256 2>/dev/null | strings -n 8 | less

References

^ Kiddle, Oliver; Jerry Peek; Peter Stephenson (2005). From Bash to Z Shell. New York, NY: Apress. p. 413. ISBN 978-1-590-59376-9. OCLC 57450917.
^ cygwin

External links

strings – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group
strings(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
strings(1) – Inferno General commands Manual

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[1] Kiddle, Oliver; Jerry Peek; Peter Stephenson (2005). From Bash to Z Shell. New York, NY: Apress. p. 413. ISBN 978-1-590-59376-9. OCLC 57450917.

[2] ygwin

[1]

[2]

v t e Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins
File system	cat chattr chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fuser ln ls mkdir mv pax pwd rm rmdir split tee touch type umask
Processes	at bg crontab fg kill nice ps time
User environment	env exit logname mesg talk tput uname who write
Text processing	awk basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fold head iconv join m4 more nl paste patch printf read sed sort strings tail tr troff uniq vi wc xargs
Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait
Searching	find grep
Documentation	man
Software development	ar ctags lex make nm strip yacc
Miscellaneous	bc cal expr lp od sleep true and false
Categories Standard Unix programs Unix SUS2008 utilities List

v t e Plan 9 command-line interface programs and shell builtins
File system	chmod chgrp cmp cp dd du file gzip ls mkdir pwd rm split tee touch
Processes	kill ps
User environment	passwd who
Text processing	awk basename comm diff ed eqn join sed sort spell strings tail tr troff uniq wc
Shell builtins	echo test
Networking	ip/ipconfig ip/ping netstat
Searching	grep
Software development	ar hoc lex nm strip yacc
Miscellaneous	bc cal fortune sleep
Category

Overview

Example

See also

References

External links