STRINGS(1)                  General Commands Manual                 STRINGS(1)

NAME
       strings - find the printable strings in a object, or other binary, file

SYNOPSIS
       strings [ - ] [ -a ] [ -o ] [ -t format ] [ -number ] [ -n number ]
       [--] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
       Strings looks for ASCII strings in a binary file or standard input.
       Strings is useful for identifying random object files and many other
       things.  A string is any sequence of 4 (the default) or more printing
       characters [ending at, but not including, any other character or EOF].
       Unless the - flag is given, strings looks in all sections of the object
       files except the (__TEXT,__text) section.  If no files are specified
       standard input is read.

       The file arguments may be of the form libx.a(foo.o), to request
       information about only that object file and not the entire library.
       (Typically this argument must be quoted, ``libx.a(foo.o)'', to get it
       past the shell.)

       The options to strings(1) are:

       -a     This option causes strings to look for strings in all sections
              of the object file (including the (__TEXT,__text) section.

       -      This option causes strings to look for strings in all bytes of
              the files (the default for non-object files).

       --     This option causes strings to treat all the following arguments
              as files.

       -o     Preceded each string by its offset in the file (in decimal).

       -t format
              Write each string preceded by its byte offset from the start of
              the file.  The format shall be dependent on the single character
              used as the format option-argument:

       d      The offset shall be written in decimal.

       o      The offset shall be written in octal.

       x      The offset shall be written in hexadecimal.

       -number
              The decimal number is used as the minimum string length rather
              than the default of 4.

       -n number
              Specify the minimum string length, where the number argument is
              a positive decimal integer. The default shall be 4.

       -arch arch_type
              Specifies the architecture, arch_type, of the file for
              strings(1) to operate on when the file is a universal file.
              (See arch(3) for the currently know arch_types.)  The arch_type
              can be "all" to operate on all architectures in the file.

SEE ALSO
       od(1)

BUGS
       The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.

Apple, Inc.                      June 7, 2016                       STRINGS(1)