LLVM-STRINGS(1)

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version 16.0.6 · 3 versions
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✨ LLVM-STRINGS(1) ✨

okay so bestie, we're in section 1 of the LLVM manual, and today's main character is llvm-strings 🎀

💖 NAME 💖

llvm-strings — print strings 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

llvm-strings [options] [input…]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so llvm-strings is literally a drop-in replacement for GNU's strings 👑 it goes looking for printable strings in files and writes them straight to the standard output stream. and what counts as a printable string? any sequence of four (by default) or more printable ASCII characters. the end of the file, or literally any other byte, terminates the current sequence. periodt. 💅

llvm-strings hunts for strings in each input file you specify. but here's the tea — unlike GNU strings, it looks in the entire input file, no matter what the file format is, instead of restricting the search to certain sections of object files. no cap. 🔥

and if you pass - as an input, or you just don't specify any input at all, the program reads from the standard input stream. easy. 🫶

🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

$ cat input.txt
bars
foo
wibble blob
$ llvm-strings input.txt
bars
wibble blob

(yeah it ate that up, foo was too short to make the cut 😭)

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --all, -a — silently ignored. it's just there for GNU strings compatibility. it's giving "present but not participating" 🙈
  • --bytes=<length>, -n — sets the minimum number of printable ASCII characters a sequence of bytes needs before it counts as a string. the default value is 4.
  • --help, -h — shows you a summary of the command line options. your lil cheat sheet ✨
  • --print-file-name, -f — displays the name of the containing file before each string. iconic behaviour tbh.

Example:

$ llvm-strings --print-file-name test.o test.elf
test.o: _Z5hellov
test.o: some_bss
test.o: test.cpp
test.o: main
test.elf: test.cpp
test.elf: test2.cpp
test.elf: _Z5hellov
test.elf: main
test.elf: some_bss
  • --radix=<radix>, -t — displays the offset within the file of each string, before the string, using the radix you specified. valid <radix> values are o, d and x for octal, decimal and hexadecimal respectively. pick your fighter 🌈

Example:

$ llvm-strings --radix=o test.o
    1054 _Z5hellov
    1066 .rela.text
    1101 .comment
    1112 some_bss
    1123 .bss
    1130 test.cpp
    1141 main
$ llvm-strings --radix=d test.o
    556 _Z5hellov
    566 .rela.text
    577 .comment
    586 some_bss
    595 .bss
    600 test.cpp
    609 main
$ llvm-strings -t x test.o
    22c _Z5hellov
    236 .rela.text
    241 .comment
    24a some_bss
    253 .bss
    258 test.cpp
    261 main
  • --version — displays the version of the llvm-strings executable. 💜
  • @<FILE> — reads command-line options from the response file <FILE>. yes bestie, options-from-a-file, we love a delegation moment 🧚

🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

llvm-strings exits with a non-zero exit code if there's an error. otherwise? it exits with code 0. slay. ✨

😭 BUGS 😭

to report bugs, please visit <‐ https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/labels/tools:llvm-strings/. (yes the URL is doing the most, that's just how it is 💀)

👑 AUTHOR 👑

maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/). absolute legends.

2003-2024, LLVM Project

and that's the whole page bestie, you're so welcome 💖 this was version 15, dated 2024-04-14 — go forth and find those strings, iykyk 🎀🦋

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