LLVM-STRINGS(1)

💅 LLVM-STRINGS 💅

okay so bestie, you're looking at the LLVM-STRINGS page from the LLVM manual, section 1 — and honestly? she's a little icon, a tiny string-hunting fairy, and I'm gonna walk you through every single bit of her. no cap. 🧚✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

llvm-strings — print strings. that's it. that's the whole vibe. it prints strings. 💖

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

llvm-strings [options] [input...]

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so llvm-strings is a tool that is intended as a drop-in replacement for GNU's strings, and what she does is she goes looking for printable strings in files and writes them straight to the standard output stream. main character behavior fr fr. 👑

and what even is a printable string, you ask? it's any sequence of four (by default) or more printable ASCII characters. yep — four is the default, but like, that's adjustable (see --bytes below, iykyk). and the sequence just ends when you hit the end of the file, or any other byte. any non-printable byte? boom, sequence over. periodt. 💀

llvm-strings looks for strings in each input file you specify. but here's the tea — unlike GNU strings, it looks in the entire input file, regardless of file format, instead of restricting the search to certain sections of object files. she's thorough like that. 🙈

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

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🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

like, here's her actually doing her thing:

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

see how foo didn't make the cut? that's only three characters, bestie. the minimum is four. she's got standards. 😭 (the default, anyway — you can change it!)

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --all, -a — silently ignored. like, genuinely. nothing happens. it's present purely for GNU strings compatibility, so your scripts don't explode. she's being polite. 🫶
• --bytes=<length>, -n — set the minimum number of printable ASCII characters required for a sequence of bytes to be considered a string. the default value is 4. lower it and you get more (shorter) strings, raise it and she gets picky. ⭐
• --help, -h — display a summary of command line options. your classic cry-for-help flag. 💖
• --print-file-name, -f — display the name of the containing file before each string. super useful when you're scanning a bunch of files and need to know who's who.

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 — display the offset within the file of each string, before the string, and using the specified radix. valid <radix> values are o, d and x for octal, decimal and hexadecimal respectively. offsets, but make it fashion. 🌈

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 — display the version of the llvm-strings executable. know your queen. 👑
• @<FILE> — read command-line options from response file <FILE>. very "here's my list, don't @ me" of you. 🦋

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🔥 EXIT STATUS 🔥

llvm-strings exits with a non-zero exit code if there is an error. otherwise, she exits with code 0. clean, simple, no drama. ✨

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💀 BUGS 💀

to report bugs, please visit:

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/labels/tools:llvm-strings/

(that's the link — go off, file that issue, be the change you wish to see. 🫶)

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/). legends, honestly. 🌟

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🌸 COPYRIGHT 🌸

2003-2026, LLVM Project

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ngl bestie, that's the whole page — every flag, every default, every example, all of it. go forth and find your strings. 💅🎀

signing off from page 23, dated 2026-10-06, straight outta the LLVM-STRINGS(1) manual — mwah, love u, bye! 💖🦋✨