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. |