Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: binutils-20050520-1

Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: binutils-20050520-1

[Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes]

On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 01:05:53PM +0100, zzapper wrote:
> usr/bin/strings.exe strings - print the strings of printable
> characters in files. (Really Useful for guessing what a program
> does)

This is really elegant and precise use of language.

To *find* out what a program does, use man or info.
To *guess* what a program does, use strings.

Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: binutils-20050520-1

[Igor Pechtchanski]

On Wed, 25 May 2005, Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes wrote:

> On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 01:05:53PM +0100, zzapper wrote:
> > usr/bin/strings.exe strings - print the strings of printable
> > characters in files. (Really Useful for guessing what a program
> > does)
>
> This is really elegant and precise use of language.
>
> To *find* out what a program does, use man or info.
> To *guess* what a program does, use strings.

Agreed.  It's also helpful for guessing command-line options (especially
long ones).

On a side note, zzapper seems to be sending out these descriptions of
packages after every announcement.  I think it's a nice idea, but it may
be more useful if there were lists of these descriptions maintained
somewhere that Cygwin maintainers could link to.  I wonder if he would be
willing to do this...
	Igor
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RE: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: binutils-20050520-1

[Dave Korn]

----Original Message----
>From: Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes
>Sent: 25 May 2005 17:09

> On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 01:05:53PM +0100, zzapper wrote:
>> usr/bin/strings.exe strings - print the strings of printable
>> characters in files. (Really Useful for guessing what a program
>> does)
> 
> This is really elegant and precise use of language.
> 
> To *find* out what a program does, use man or info.
> To *guess* what a program does, use strings.


  Heh, I once ran 'strings' on (iirc) one of Dave Aitel's proof-of-concept
MS/RPC exploits, and amongst the garbage saw the message

'strings' is not a reverse engineering tool!

fly by....



    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
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