Strings (Unix)

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In computer software, strings is a program in Unix-like operating systems that prints the strings found in an executable.

It can be used on object files, and core dumps.

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

Common usage includes piping it to grep and fold or redirecting the output to a file.

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

[edit] Example

$ strings foobar
Qåtd
/lib/ld-linux.so.2
_Jv_RegisterClasses
__gmon_start__
libc.so.6
puts
_IO_stdin_used
__libc_start_main
GLIBC_2.0
...

[edit] See also

• cat
• GNU Debugger
• strip

[edit] External links

• strings(1): print the strings of printable characters in files – Linux man page on die.net

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