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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 ‘<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-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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