strings (Unix)

<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2>
<p>Strings are recognized by looking for sequences of at least 4 (by default) printable characters terminating in a NUL character (that is, <a href="/facts/Null-terminated_string/Vt75UxVG">null-terminated strings</a>).
Some implementations provide options for determining what is recognized as a printable character, which is useful for finding non-ASCII and wide character text.
By default, it only prints the strings from the initialized and loaded sections of object files; for other types of files, it prints the strings from the whole file.
With regular text files, strings and <a href="/facts/Cat_(Unix)/KQPATH6w">cat</a> give different output.
<a href="/facts/Cat_(Unix)/KQPATH6w">cat</a> outputs the non printable characters but strings does not.
</p><p>strings is part of the <a href="/facts/GNU_Binary_Utilities/J44lMK6U">GNU Binary Utilities</a> (binutils), and has been ported to other operating systems including <a href="/facts/Microsoft_Windows/bwhAhuSL">Windows</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a>
</p>
<h2 id="example">Example</h2>
<p>Using <i>strings</i> to print sequences of characters that are at least 8 characters long (this command prints the system's <a href="/facts/BIOS/AYYPUogS">BIOS</a> information; should be run as root):
</p>
dd if=/dev/mem bs=1k skip=768 count=256 2><a href="/facts/%2fdev%2fnull/MdLRSA8E">/dev/null</a> | strings -n 8 | <a href="/facts/Less_(Unix)/dV6K2hne">less</a>

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul>
<li>Free and open-source software portal</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Cat_(Unix)/KQPATH6w">Cat (Unix)</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Paste_(Unix)/pQbtMFVL">Paste (Unix)</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/GNU_Debugger/nTs958uC">GNU Debugger</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Strip_(Unix)/qNQd9fgu">Strip (Unix)</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>

The Wikibook <i>Guide to Unix</i> has a page on the topic of: <i>Commands</i>

<ul><li><a href="https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/strings.html">strings</a> – Shell and Utilities Reference, <a href="/facts/Single_Unix_Specification/w1ba5bDt">The Single UNIX Specification</a>, Version 4 from <a href="/facts/The_Open_Group/uRoDdEae">The Open Group</a></li>
<li><a href="https://9p.io/magic/man2html/1/strings">strings(1)</a> – <a href="/facts/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs/pQjPlS7w">Plan 9</a> Programmer's Manual, Volume 1</li>
<li><a href="http://man.cat-v.org/inferno/1/strings">strings(1)</a> – <a href="/facts/Inferno_(operating_system)/baKPoWRU">Inferno</a> General commands <a href="/facts/Man_page/S2yYjy0J">Manual</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>cygwin <a href="/wiki/Cygwin" target="_blank">/wiki/Cygwin</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

strings (Unix) open-in-new

strings (Unix)