NAME

       strings - find printable strings in files

SYNOPSIS

       strings [-a][-t format][-n number][file...]

DESCRIPTION

       The  strings  utility  shall  look  for printable strings in regular files and shall write
       those strings to standard output. A printable string is any sequence of four (by  default)
       or  more  printable  characters  terminated  by  a  <newline> or NUL character. Additional
       implementation-defined strings may be written; see localedef.

OPTIONS

       The strings utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
       Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -a     Scan  files in their entirety. If -a is not specified, it is implementation-defined
              what portion of each file is scanned for strings.

       -n  number
              Specify the minimum string length, where the number argument is a positive  decimal
              integer. The default shall be 4.

       -t  format
              Write  each  string  preceded  by  its  byte offset from the start of the file. The
              format shall be dependent on the  single  character  used  as  the  format  option-
              argument:

       d
              The offset shall be written in decimal.

       o
              The offset shall be written in octal.

       x
              The offset shall be written in hexadecimal.

OPERANDS

       The following operand shall be supported:

       file   A  pathname of a regular file to be used as input. If no file operand is specified,
              the strings utility shall read from the standard input.

STDIN

       See the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES

       The input files named by the utility arguments or the  standard  input  shall  be  regular
       files of any format.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of strings:

       LANG   Provide  a  default  value for the internationalization variables that are unset or
              null. (See the  Base  Definitions  volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  Section  8.2,
              Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables
              used to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If set to  a  non-empty  string  value,  override  the  values  of  all  the  other
              internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine  the  locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as
              characters (for  example,  single-byte  as  opposed  to  multi-byte  characters  in
              arguments and input files) and to identify printable strings.

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine  the  locale  that  should  be  used to affect the format and contents of
              diagnostic messages written to standard error.

       NLSPATH
              Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

       Default.

STDOUT

       Strings found shall be written to the standard output, one per line.

       When the -t option is not specified, the format of the output shall be:

              "%s", <string>

       With the -t o option, the format of the output shall be:

              "%o %s", <byte offset>, <string>

       With the -t x option, the format of the output shall be:

              "%x %s", <byte offset>, <string>

       With the -t d option, the format of the output shall be:

              "%d %s", <byte offset>, <string>

STDERR

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

       None.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

       By default the data area (as opposed to the text, "bss", or  header  areas)  of  a  binary
       executable file is scanned.  Implementations document which areas are scanned.

       Some historical implementations do not require NUL or <newline> terminators for strings to
       permit those languages that do not use NUL as a string terminator to  have  their  strings
       written.

EXAMPLES

       None.

RATIONALE

       Apart  from  rationalizing  the  option  syntax  and  slight  difficulties with object and
       executable binary files, strings is specified to match historical practice closely. The -a
       and -n options were introduced to replace the non-conforming - and - number options.

       The  -o  option historically means different things on different implementations. Some use
       it to mean " offset in decimal", while others use it as " offset  in  octal".  Instead  of
       trying  to  decide which way would be least objectionable, the -t option was added. It was
       originally named -O to mean "offset", but was changed to -t to be consistent with od.

       The ISO C standard function isprint() is restricted to a domain  of  unsigned  char.  This
       volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 requires implementations to write strings as defined by the
       current locale.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       localedef , nm

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2003  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by
       the  Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE  and  The  Open  Group
       Standard,  the  original  IEEE  and  The  Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
       original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .