strings (Unix)

Not to be confused with string (computing).

In computer software, strings is a program in Unix-like operating systems that finds and prints text strings embedded in binary files such as executables. It can be used on object files and core dumps.

Strings are recognized by looking for sequences of at least 4 (by default) printable characters terminating in a NUL character (that is, null-terminated strings). Some implementations provide options for determining what is recognized as a printable character, which is useful for finding non-ASCII and wide character text.

Common usage includes piping its output to grep and fold or redirecting the output to a file.^[1]

It is part of the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), and has been ported to other operating systems including Microsoft Windows.^[2]

Example

Using strings to print sequences of characters that are at least 8 characters long (this command prints the system's BIOS information; should be run as root):

dd if=/dev/mem bs=1k skip=768 count=256 2>/dev/null | strings -n 8 | less

References

↑ Kiddle, Oliver; Jerry Peek; Peter Stephenson (2005). From Bash to Z Shell. New York, NY: Apress. p. 413. ISBN 978-1-590-59376-9. OCLC 57450917.
↑ cygwin

External links

strings – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group

Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins

File system	cat chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fsck fuser ln ls mkdir mount mv pax pwd rm rmdir size split tee touch type umask

Processes	at bg chroot cron fg kill killall nice pgrep pkill ps pstree time top

User environment	clear env exit finger history id logname mesg passwd su sudo uptime talk tput uname w wall who whoami write

Text processing	awk banner basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fmt fold head iconv join less more nl paste printf sed sort spell strings tail tr uniq vi wc xargs yes

Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait

Networking	dig host ifconfig inetd netcat netstat nslookup ping rdate rlogin route ssh traceroute

Searching	find grep locate whatis whereis

Documentation	apropos help man

Miscellaneous	bc dc cal expr lp od sleep true and false

List of Unix utilities

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strings (Unix)

Example

See also

References

External links