Linux Command - strings

The Linux strings command can be used to view strings in a binary file.

Show all strings inside a binary file:

strings /bin/ls

Show file offsets in hex:

strings -t x /bin/ls

Check two files and print file names before each string:

strings -f /bin/ls /bin/pwd

Use alternate encoding:

strings -e S  /bin/ls

-a	scan whole file, normally default
-d	only print from initialized, loaed data sections
-f	print file name before each string
-n 5	only print strings of min length
-t x	radix hex
-t o	radix octal
-t d	radix decimal
-e L	specify other encodings, good for finding wide character strings

Encodings that can be specified:

s	single-7-bit-byte characters (ASCII, ISO 8859, etc., default)
S	single-8-bit-byte characters
b	16-bit bigendian
l	16-bit littleendian
B	32-bit bigendian
L	32-bit littleendian