Strings (Unix): Difference between revisions

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In [[computer software]], '''strings''' is a program in [[Unix]], [[Plan 9 from Bell Labs|Plan 9]], [[Inferno (operating system)|Inferno]], and [[Unix-like]] [[operating system]]s that finds and prints textthe [[stringstrings (computerof science)|strings]]printable embeddedcharacters in files. The files can be of regular text files or [[binary files]] such as executables. It can be used on object files and [[core dump]]s. '''strings''' is mainly useful for determining the contents of non-text files.

==Overview==

Strings are recognized by looking for sequences of at least 4 (by default) printable characters terminating in a NUL character (that is, [[null-terminated string]]s). 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.

Common usage includes piping its output to {{mono|[[grep]]}} and {{mono|[[Fold (Unix)|fold]]}} or redirecting the output to a [[Computer file|file]].<ref>{{cite book