Find printable strings in files (POSIX)
On QNX Neutrino:
strings [options] file…
On Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows:
strings_variants [options] file…
where strings_variant depends on the target platform, as follows:
| Target platform | strings_variant |
|---|---|
| ARMv7 | ntoarmv7-strings |
| AArch64 | ntoaarch64-strings |
| x86 | ntox86-strings |
| x86 64-bit | ntox86_64-strings |
For each file given, strings prints the printable character sequences that are at least 4 characters long (or the number given with the options) and are followed by an unprintable character. By default, it prints only the strings from the initialized and loaded sections of object and ELF files; for other types of files, it prints the strings from the whole file.
The strings utility is mainly useful for determining the contents of nontext files.
For more information, see the Binutils documentation on the GNU website at https://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/manual/.
GNU