What is the equivalent python script of Linux command "strings"?

Question

I am reading some file with a binary content:

adb shell cat /data/somefile.dat

On Linux, after pulling the file from the android device, I can do:

$ strings somefile.dat

to read the file content.

Now I am trying to do the same thing on Windows using Python script.

Any help?

strings is actually a lot more complicated than just finding runs of printable characters -- it recognizes and parses executable file formats as well (which is the logic where it had security bugs come up recently). — Charles Duffy
– Charles Duffy, Commented Jan 31, 2015 at 0:07
Rather than trying to reimplement this yourself, you might want to get a tool already built for it. See superuser.com/questions/124081/… — Don Roby
– Don Roby, Commented Jan 31, 2015 at 0:10

Joran Beasley · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-31 00:04:37Z

2

just use re to print everything that looks like a string

print re.findall("[a-zA-Z0-9]+",open("some_file.data","rb").read())

answered Jan 31, 2015 at 0:04

Joran Beasley

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Comments

Josh Correia · Accepted Answer · 2019-10-22 14:50:24Z

0

Here's a version that works for Python3:

print(re.findall("[a-zA-Z0-9]+", open(filename, "rb").read().decode('ISO-8859-1')))

answered Oct 22, 2019 at 14:50

Josh Correia

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