STRINGS(1)

📦 version 2.45, in ubuntu questing

🎀 NAME 🎀

okay bestie, this is STRINGS(1) from the GNU Development Tools crew 💖

strings - print the sequences of printable characters in files ✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

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

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so for each file you give it, GNU strings digs out the printable character sequences that are at least 4 characters long (or whatever number you pick with the options below) and that are followed by an unprintable character 🔍

here's the tea 🫖: depending on how strings was configured, it either shows every printable sequence it can find in each file, or only the ones sitting in loadable, initialized data sections. if the file type is unrecognizable, or if strings is reading from stdin, it will always show all the printable sequences it can find. no cap 💅

for backwards compatibility, any file that comes after a command-line option of just - also gets scanned in full, even if you used a -d option. iconic behaviour, honestly 👑

strings is mainly useful for figuring out what's inside non-text files 🧚

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • -a, --all, - — scan the whole file, no matter what sections it has or whether those sections are loaded or initialized 🌈 this is usually the default, but strings can be configured so that -d is the default instead. ALSO the - option is position dependent: it forces full scans of any file mentioned after the - on the command line, even if -d was specified 🙈
  • -d, --data — only print strings from initialized, loaded data sections in the file ✨ this can cut down on the garbage in your output, BUT it also exposes the strings program to any security flaws lurking in the BFD library used to scan and load sections ⚠️ strings can be configured so this is the default. in that case, use -a to skip the BFD library and just print every string found in the file.
  • -f, --print-file-name — print the name of the file before each string 📁
  • --help — print a summary of program usage on the standard output and exit 🫶
  • -min-len, -n min-len, --bytes=min-len — print sequences of displayable characters that are at least min-len characters long 💖 if you don't specify it, the default minimum length is 4. what counts as "displayable" depends on your -e and -U settings. sequences always end at control characters like newline and carriage-return, but NOT the tab character 🍓
  • -o — same as -t o 🎀 some other versions of strings make -o act like -t d instead. since we can't be compatible with both, this one picked -t o 🙃
  • -t radix, --radix=radix — print the offset within the file before each string 🔢 that single character picks the radix of the offset: o for octal, x for hexadecimal, or d for decimal 🧮
  • -e encoding, --encoding=encoding — choose the character encoding of the strings you're hunting for 🔍 the options are: s = single-7-bit-byte characters (the default), S = single-8-bit-byte characters, b = 16-bit bigendian, l = 16-bit littleendian, B = 32-bit bigendian, and L = 32-bit littleendian. super useful for finding wide character strings! (l and b apply to things like Unicode UTF-16/UCS-2 encodings 🌍)
  • -U [d|i|l|e|x|h], --unicode=[default|invalid|locale|escape|hex|highlight] — controls how UTF-8 encoded multibyte characters show up in your strings 🌸 the default (--unicode=default) gives them no special treatment and relies on whatever --encoding says. every other value automatically turns on --encoding=S.
    • --unicode=invalid treats them as non-graphic characters, so they're NOT part of a valid string 🚫
    • --unicode=locale shows them in the current locale, which may or may not support UTF-8 encoding 🗺️
    • --unicode=hex shows them as hex byte sequences wrapped in <> characters 🧩
    • --unicode=escape shows them as escape sequences (\uxxxx) 🪄
    • --unicode=highlight shows the escape sequences highlighted in red (if your output device supports it) 🚨 the colouring is there to draw your eye to unicode sequences where they might not be expected 👀

all the options except invalid treat them as valid string characters, btw ✨

  • -T bfdname, --target=bfdname — specify an object code format other than your system's default format 🎯
  • -v, -V, --version — print the program version number on the standard output and exit 🔖
  • -w, --include-all-whitespace — by default, tab and space characters are included in the strings that get displayed, but other whitespace like newlines and carriage returns are NOT 🙅 -w changes that so ALL whitespace characters count as part of a string 🫧
  • -s, --output-separator — by default, output strings are delimited by a new-line 💅 this option lets you supply any string to use as the output record separator. it's especially handy with --include-all-whitespace, since strings might contain new-lines inside them 🧁
  • @file — read command-line options from file 📜 the options read get inserted right where the original @file option was. if file doesn't exist or can't be read, the option gets treated literally and is NOT removed 😤
    • options inside file are separated by whitespace 🫧
    • to include a whitespace character in an option, wrap the whole option in either single or double quotes 🎀
    • to include any character (including a backslash), prefix it with a backslash 🪶
    • the file can contain its own @file options too, and those get processed recursively 🌀

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

ar(1), nm(1), objdump(1), ranlib(1), readelf(1) and the Info entries for binutils 📚

Copyright (c) 1991-2025 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 vibe, bestie 🫶 this page came from binutils-2.45, dated 2025-12-03, and it is STRINGS(1) all the way through 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from