STRINGS(1)

📦 version 12.2.0, in nixpkgs unstable

💅 STRINGS(1) — GNU Development Tools 💅

Heyyy bestie! Welcome to the strings manpage, but make it slay. This is from GNU Development Tools, and it's all about finding the printable tea in your binary files. Let's go! 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

strings — print the strings of printable characters in files. Literally that's the whole vibe. 💖

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

       strings [-afovV] [-min-len]
               [-n min-len] [--bytes=min-len]
               [-t radix] [--radix=radix]
               [-e encoding] [--encoding=encoding]
               [-] [--all] [--print-file-name]
               [-T bfdname] [--target=bfdname]
               [-w] [--include-all-whitespace]
               [-s] [--output-separatorsep_string]
               [--help] [--version] file...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so for each file you give it, GNU strings prints out the printable character sequences that are at least 4 characters long (or whatever number you set with the options below, bestie) and are followed by an unprintable character. It's like a little treasure hunt for readable bits! ✨

Depending on how the strings program was configured (iykyk), it'll default to either displaying all the printable sequences it can find in each file, or only those sequences that are in loadable, initialized data sections. Fancy, right?

If the file type is unrecognizable, or if strings is reading from stdin, then it will always display all of the printable sequences that it can find. No cap. 💯

For backwards compatibility, any file that occurs after a command line option of just - will also be scanned in full, regardless of the presence of any -d option. So like, the - is giving "scan everything" energy for everything after it.

strings is mainly useful for determining the contents of non-text files. Like, what's inside that mysterious binary? Bestie, strings will tell you. 🔍

👑 OPTIONS 👑

Okay, the options section. Buckle up, there are a lot, but they're all iconic in their own way.

  • -a, --all — Scan the whole file, regardless of what sections it contains or whether those sections are loaded or initialized. Normally this is the default behaviour, but strings can be configured so that the -d is the default instead.

The - option is position dependent and forces strings to perform full scans of any file that is mentioned after the - on the command line, even if the -d option has been specified.

  • -d, --data — Only print strings from initialized, loaded data sections in the file. This may reduce the amount of garbage in the output, but it also exposes the strings program to any security flaws that may be present in the BFD library used to scan and load sections. Bestie, that's a real warning! Strings can be configured so that this option is the default behaviour. In such cases the -a option can be used to avoid using the BFD library and instead just print all of the strings found in the file.
  • -f, --print-file-name — Print the name of the file before each string. Like a little name tag for every string. 🏷️
  • --help — Print a summary of the program usage on the standard output and exit. Helpful bestie energy. 🙏
  • -min-len, -n min-len, --bytes=min-len — Print sequences of characters that are at least min-len characters long, instead of the default 4. So if you want shorter or longer strings, this is your moment.
  • -o — Like -t o. Some other versions of strings have -o act like -t d instead. Since we can not be compatible with both ways, we simply chose one. Periodt. 💅
  • -t radix, --radix=radix — Print the offset within the file before each string. The single character argument specifies the radix of the offset---o for octal, x for hexadecimal, or d for decimal. Cute little offset intro! 🎀
  • -e encoding, --encoding=encoding — Select the character encoding of the strings that are to be found. Possible values for encoding are: s = single-7-bit-byte characters (ASCII, ISO 8859, etc., default), S = single-8-bit-byte characters, b = 16-bit bigendian, l = 16-bit littleendian, B = 32-bit bigendian, L = 32-bit littleendian. Useful for finding wide character strings. (l and b apply to, for example, Unicode UTF-16/UCS-2 encodings). So many options, so many encodings! 🌈
  • -T bfdname, --target=bfdname — Specify an object code format other than your system's default format. For when you're feeling extra. ✨
  • -v, -V, --version — Print the program version number on the standard output and exit. Gotta know what version you're on, bestie. 📌
  • -w, --include-all-whitespace — By default tab and space characters are included in the strings that are displayed, but other whitespace characters, such as newlines and carriage returns, are not. The -w option changes this so that all whitespace characters are considered to be part of a string. So if you want the whole vibe including newlines, this is your girl. 🫧
  • -s, --output-separator — By default, output strings are delimited by a new-line. This option allows you to supply any string to be used as the output record separator. Useful with --include-all-whitespace where strings may contain new-lines internally. So you can make the separator whatever you want. Iconic. 💫
  • @file — Read command-line options from file. The options read are inserted in place of the original @file option. If file does not exist, or cannot be read, then the option will be treated literally, and not removed.

Options in file are separated by whitespace. A whitespace character may be included in an option by surrounding the entire option in either single or double quotes. Any character (including a backslash) may be included by prefixing the character to be included with a backslash. The file may itself contain additional @file options; any such options will be processed recursively.

So like, @file is the ultimate bestie that reads more options from a file. Recursive realness. 🔁

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

Check out these other iconic tools: ar(1), nm(1), objdump(1), ranlib(1), readelf(1) and the Info entries for binutils. All the besties in the binutils friend group. 🫶

Copyright (c) 1991-2018 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

And that's the whole page! This iconic manpage is from binutils-2.30, dated 2018-01-27. Slay, GNU Development Tools. You ate. 💅✨🎀

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