Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 22:10:27 -0500 (EST) From: hoek@freenet.hamilton.on.ca To: mbando@melita.com Cc: "'freebsd'" <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Prob with "strings.c" Message-ID: <199610290310.WAA14832@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
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In Email, Mana Bando <mbando@melita.com> wrote:
> I do not know whether you guy's are the right person or not...but if you
> are, can you help me out...here below i got a program call "strings.c" which
> my boss told me that he got it quite a while ago from "freebsd"...i tried to
> compile this code... unfortunately, this is giving me an error...looks like
> either downloading was not correct or some of the needed file to run this
> program are missing...anyway, can you solve this problem and let me know
It compiled finely on my FreeBSD-2.2-961004-SNAP system.
If you tried compiling it on a non-FreeBSD system, somehow I'm not
surprised it didn't compile correctly.
> whether i am looking at the right "strings.c" source codes or you have the
> latest version of this codes or during download we might lost some of the
> needed header file or we need to download correct version with the correct
> header file....
It looks like you have the latest version of the file. When compiled and
stripped it matches the `strings' binary on my machine.
> ...anyway, i will really appreciate if you can help me out
> asap...incidentally, if you can let me know any of its documentation or what
> it does in detail, will be a great help...here below i am attaching the
> "strings.c" file.
man 1 strings
STRINGS(1) FreeBSD Reference Manual STRINGS(1)
NAME
strings - find printable strings in a file
SYNOPSIS
strings [-afo] [-n number] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
Strings displays the sequences of printable characters in each of the
specified files, or in the standard input, by default. By default, a se-
quence must be at least four characters in length before being displayed.
The options are as follows:
-a By default, strings only searches the text and data segments of
object files. The -a option causes strings to search the entire
object file.
-f Each string is preceded by the name of the file in which it was
found.
-n Specifies the minimum number of characters in a sequence to be
number, instead of four.
-o Each string is preceded by its decimal offset in the file.
Strings is useful for identifying random binaries, among other things.
SEE ALSO
hexdump(1)
BUGS
The algorithm for identifying strings is extremely primitive. In partic-
ular, machine code instructions on certain architectures can resemble se-
quences of ASCII bytes, which will fool the algorithm.
COMPATABILITY
Historic implementations of strings only search the initialized data por-
tion of the object file. This was reasonable as strings were normally
stored there. Given new compiler technology which installs strings in
the text portion of the object file, the default behavior was changed.
HISTORY
The strings command appeared in 3.0BSD.
3rd Berkeley Distribution June 6, 1993 1
--
tIM...HOEk
The opinions expressed above are mine,
and if my employer shares them,
that's his hard luck.
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