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displays  the  sequences  of  printable characters in each of the
specified files, or  in  the  standard  input,  by  default.   By
default,  a  sequence  must be at least four characters in length
before being displayed.  The options are as follows: By  default,
only  searches  the  text and data segments of object files.  The
option causes to search the entire object file.  Each  string  is
preceded  by  the name of the file in which it was found.  Speci-
fies the minimum number of characters in a sequence to be instead
of  four.   Each  string is preceded by its decimal offset in the
file.  is useful for identifying  random  binaries,  among  other
things.  The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely prim-
itive.  In  particular,  machine  code  instructions  on  certain
architectures  can  resemble sequences of ASCII bytes, which will
fool the algorithm.  Historic implementations of only search  the
initialized data portion of the object file.  This was reasonable
as strings were normally stored there.  Given new compiler  tech-
nology  which  installs strings in the text portion of the object
file, the default behavior was changed.  The command appeared in







































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