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strings

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strings
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        Extract ASCII strings from a file

Usage:  strings [-hatbenuqvlodx-] [-<min>] [-r<radix>] [ file1 file2 ... ]

   strings will search for any occurrences of ASCII text in the
   files you give it.  The presumption is that the files are
   mostly binary and perhaps quite large, making it impractical
   to look at them directly.

   A string is normally defined as 4 or more printable ASCII
   characters terminated by a Null, CarriageReturn, NewLine
   or a CarriageReturn-NewLine combination.  All the white
   space characters are considered printable and are included
   in the length count except when they terminate a string.
   (To C programmers, these printable ASCII characters are
   the isprint() and IsSpace() characters.)

   If you specify a series of files, they're searched one after
   the other, each one introduced by name unless you specify
   Quiet mode.  Each string that's found is listed on a separate
   line.  Note that if a particular string contains NewLine or
   CarriageReturn characters, it will be displayed as a series of
   (possibly) very short substrings, one per line.

Options:

   -h         Help.  (This screen.)
   -<min>     Minimum string length to report, specified as a
              decimal integer.
   -a         Any string, even if not terminated with a line
              ending or a null character.
   -t         Trim leading white space from each string.
   -b         Discard strings containing only white space.
   -e         European characters (accented alphabetics and
              European punctuation) will be considered as
              ordinary printable text.
   -n         Control characters FormFeed and VerticalTab will
              also be considered to be string terminators.
   -u         UNICODE strings consisting of ordinary ASCII
              characters (each a printable ASCII character followed
              by a null character) will be extracted as regular
              ASCII.
   -q         Quiet mode.  Don't announce the name of each file
              as it's read.
   -v         Verbose.  Paste the name of the file in which it
              occurs onto the front of each string.
   -l         Long mode.  Show where each string occurs, counting
              bytes from the beginning of the file.  The radix
              used can be explicitly chosen with -o, -d, -x, or
              -r; it defaults to the value specified by the RADIX
              environmental variable if defined or 16 otherwise.
   -o         Octal offsets.
   -d         Decimal offsets.
   -x         Hex offsets shown.
   -r<radix>  User-specified radix.
   --         End of options.

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