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Annotation of src/usr.bin/strings/strings.1, Revision 1.16

1.16    ! jmc         1: .\"    $OpenBSD: strings.1,v 1.15 2010/07/22 07:38:56 jmc Exp $
1.1       deraadt     2: .\"    $NetBSD: strings.1,v 1.4 1994/12/10 11:54:28 jtc Exp $
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                     31: .\"     @(#)strings.1  8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
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1.16    ! jmc        33: .Dd $Mdocdate: July 22 2010 $
1.1       deraadt    34: .Dt STRINGS 1
                     35: .Os
                     36: .Sh NAME
                     37: .Nm strings
                     38: .Nd find printable strings in a file
                     39: .Sh SYNOPSIS
                     40: .Nm strings
                     41: .Op Fl afo
1.12      sobrado    42: .Op Fl m Ar number
1.1       deraadt    43: .Op Fl n Ar number
                     44: .Op Fl t Ar radix
1.14      sobrado    45: .Op Ar
1.1       deraadt    46: .Sh DESCRIPTION
1.4       aaron      47: .Nm
1.1       deraadt    48: displays the sequences of printable characters in each of the specified
                     49: files, or in the standard input, by default.
                     50: By default, a sequence must be at least four characters in length
                     51: before being displayed.
                     52: .Pp
                     53: The options are as follows:
                     54: .Bl -tag -width Ds
                     55: .It Fl a
                     56: By default,
1.4       aaron      57: .Nm
1.1       deraadt    58: only searches the text and data segments of object files.
                     59: The
                     60: .Fl a
                     61: option causes
1.4       aaron      62: .Nm
1.1       deraadt    63: to search the entire object file.
                     64: .It Fl f
                     65: Each string is preceded by the name of the file
                     66: in which it was found.
1.12      sobrado    67: .It Fl m Ar number
                     68: Specifies the maximum number of characters in a sequence to be
                     69: .Ar number ,
                     70: instead of unlimited.
1.3       aaron      71: .It Fl n Ar number
1.1       deraadt    72: Specifies the minimum number of characters in a sequence to be
                     73: .Ar number ,
                     74: instead of four.
                     75: .It Fl o
                     76: Each string is preceded by its octal offset in the file.
1.3       aaron      77: .It Fl t Ar radix
1.6       aaron      78: Each string is preceded by its offset in the file.
                     79: The first character of
1.1       deraadt    80: .Ar radix
1.4       aaron      81: determines the radix of the offset:
1.1       deraadt    82: .Sq o
1.4       aaron      83: for octal;
1.1       deraadt    84: .Sq d
1.4       aaron      85: for decimal; or
1.1       deraadt    86: .Sq x
                     87: for hexadecimal.
                     88: .El
                     89: .Pp
1.4       aaron      90: .Nm
1.1       deraadt    91: is useful for identifying random binaries, among other things.
1.16    ! jmc        92: .Sh EXIT STATUS
1.15      jmc        93: .Ex -std strings
1.1       deraadt    94: .Sh SEE ALSO
                     95: .Xr hexdump 1 ,
                     96: .Xr od 1
1.9       jmc        97: .Sh STANDARDS
1.10      jmc        98: The
                     99: .Nm
                    100: utility is compliant with the
1.13      jmc       101: .St -p1003.1-2008
1.10      jmc       102: specification.
                    103: .Pp
                    104: The flags
                    105: .Op Fl fmo
                    106: are extensions to that specification.
                    107: .Pp
1.1       deraadt   108: Historic implementations of
                    109: .Nm
                    110: only search the initialized data portion of the object file.
                    111: This was reasonable as strings were normally stored there.
1.4       aaron     112: Given new compiler technology which installs strings in the
1.1       deraadt   113: text portion of the object file, the default behavior was
                    114: changed.
                    115: .Sh HISTORY
                    116: The
                    117: .Nm
                    118: utility appeared in
                    119: .Bx 3.0 .
1.7       aaron     120: .Sh BUGS
                    121: The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive.
                    122: In particular, machine code instructions on certain architectures
                    123: can resemble sequences of ASCII bytes, which
                    124: will fool the algorithm.