pnu-strings 1.0.0

print the strings of printable characters in files

Installation

pip install pnu-strings

STRINGS(1)

NAME

strings - print the strings of printable characters in files

SYNOPSIS

strings [-a | --all] [-e encoding | --encoding=encoding] [-f | --print-file-name] [-h | --help | -? ] [-m number | -n number | --bytes=number | -number] [-o] [-s separator | --output-separator=separator] [-t radix | --radix=radix] [-v | -V | --version] [-w | --include-all-whitespace] [--debug] [--] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

For each file specified, the strings utility prints contiguous sequences of printable characters that are at least n characters long and are followed by an unprintable character. The default value of n is 4. By default, the entire file is scanned. The strings utility is mainly used for determining the contents of non-text files.

If no file name is specified as an argument, standard input is read.

OPTIONS

The following options are available:

Options	Use
-a|--all	Scan the entire file for printable strings (which is the default anyway)
-e encoding|--encoding=encoding	Select the character encoding to be used while searching for strings. Valid values for argument encoding are: s for single 7-bit-byte characters (ASCII, ISO 8859). S for single 8-bit-byte characters. l for 16-bit little-endian. b for 16-bit big-endian. L for 32-bit little-endian. B for 32-bit big-endian. u for 1 to 4 bytes UTF-8 characters. The default is to assume that characters are encoded using a single 7-bit byte
-f|--print-file-name	Print the name of the file before each string
-h|--help|-?	Print a usage summary and exit
-m number|-n number|--bytes=number|-number	Print the contiguous character sequence of at least number characters long, instead of the default of 4 characters. Argument number should specify a positive decimal integer
-o	Equivalent to specifying -t o
-s separator|--output-separator=separator	By default, output strings are delimited by a new-line. This option allows you to supply any string separator to be used as the output record separator. Useful with --include-all-whitespace where strings may contain new-lines internally.
-t radix|--radix=radix	Print the offset from the start of the file before each string using the specified radix. Valid values for argument radix are: d for decimal o for octal x for hexadecimal
-v|-V|--version	Display a version identifier and exit
-w|-include-all-whitespace	By default tab and space characters are included in the strings that are displayed, but other whitespace characters, such a new-lines and carriage returns, are not. The -w option changes this so that all whitespace characters are considered to be part of a string.
--debug	Enable debug mode
--	Options processing terminator

ENVIRONMENT

The STRINGS_DEBUG environment variable can be set to any value to enable debug mode.

The FLAVOUR or STRINGS_FLAVOUR environment variables can be set to one of the following values, to implement only the corresponding options and behaviours:

• posix : POSIX strings
• unix | unix:v10 : Unix v10 strings(1)
• bsd | bsd:freebsd : FreeBSD strings(1)
• gnu | gnu:linux | linux : GNU/Linux strings(1)
• plan9 : Plan 9 strings(1)
• inferno : Inferno strings(1)

However, if the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set to any value, then the POSIX flavour will be selected.

EXIT STATUS

The strings utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES

To display strings in all sections of /bin/ln use:
$ strings -a /bin/ln

To display strings in all sections of /bin/cat prefixed with the filename and the offset within the file use:
$ strings -a -f -t x /bin/cat

SEE ALSO

ar(1), nm(1), objdump(1), ranlib(1), readelf(1), size(1)

STANDARDS

The strings utility is a standard UNIX/POSIX command.

This re-implementation tries to follow the PEP 8 style guide for Python code.

Beyond Plan 9 and Inferno, UTF-encoded characters are supported in all (but POSIX and Unix v10) flavours with the -e u | --encoding=u options.

HISTORY

The first strings utility was written by Bill Joy on April 22, 1978, and appeared in 2BSD.

This re-implementation was made for the PNU project.

LICENSE

It is available under the 3-clause BSD license.

AUTHORS

Hubert Tournier

This manual page is based on the one written for FreeBSD by S.Sam Arun Raj [e-mail].

CAVEATS

This re-implementation does not support any executable format (ELF, a.out, COFF, etc.). All executable files are entirely scanned, regardless of -a | --all | - | --data | -d | -t | -s | -T | --target options.

GNU strings @file option is also unsupported.