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<h2 class="chapter">7 strings</h2>

<p><a name="index-strings-111"></a><a name="index-listings-strings-112"></a><a name="index-printing-strings-113"></a><a name="index-strings_002c-printing-114"></a>
<!-- man title strings print the strings 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">--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.  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.

   <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>Do not scan only the initialized and loaded sections of object files;
scan the whole files.

     <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 &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">-t o</span></samp>&rsquo;.  Some other versions of <samp><span class="command">strings</span></samp> have <samp><span class="option">-o</span></samp>
act like &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">-t d</span></samp>&rsquo; 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&mdash;&lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">o</span></samp>&rsquo; for
octal, &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">x</span></samp>&rsquo; for hexadecimal, or &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">d</span></samp>&rsquo; 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: &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">s</span></samp>&rsquo; = single-7-bit-byte
characters (ASCII, ISO 8859, etc., default), &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">S</span></samp>&rsquo; =
single-8-bit-byte characters, &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">b</span></samp>&rsquo; = 16-bit bigendian, &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">l</span></samp>&rsquo; =
16-bit littleendian, &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">B</span></samp>&rsquo; = 32-bit bigendian, &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">L</span></samp>&rsquo; = 32-bit
littleendian.  Useful for finding wide character strings. (&lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">l</span></samp>&rsquo;
and &lsquo;<samp><span class="samp">b</span></samp>&rsquo; 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-115"></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. 
</dl>

<!-- man end -->
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