[BusyBox] Issue with strings (1.00-pre10)

[Tito]

On Wednesday 14 April 2004 11:03, Ian Latter wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>   I put this off; I've seen the same issue in pre8,pre9 and pre10, but 
> I've just confirmed the fix.
> 
>   In my distro, I have busybox running fine, except that;
> 
>        strings /README
>        busybox strings /README
>        cat /README | busybox strings
> 
> (where README is a plain text file -- not at this is important)
> all produce "strings" output, except where inserted between
> the 4th and 5th chars are a dollar sign, yen sign and an at 
> sign, on every row -- consistent across all builds in the past
> two months or so.
> 
> The same binary on my RedHat9 dev box does not produce
> this error (just nice clean strings output)
> 
> However, the strings buffer is n=4 (-1).  Removing the 
> comment on  miscutils/strings.c line 70 (string[n]=`!
> 
> 
Hi Ian,
this works fine for me!!!

root at localhost:/dev/pts/1:/rep/busybox-1.00-pre8# ./busybox strings /README
Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.

snip

also this works

root at localhost:/dev/pts/1:/rep/busybox-1.00-pre8# ./busybox strings /README
Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.

snip

and this works too.

cat /README |./busybox strings -f
{standard input}: Please see the LICENSE file for details on copying and usage.

snip

Same thing for busybox-1.00-pre10.

Even if running an extensive test with the following script:
#!/bin/bash
# Test for files
a=0
echo "Testing Busybox strings applet vs real strings."
echo "Test n°1: strings -afo file."
for dir in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin
do
	for i in `ls -1 $dir`
	do
		strings -af -t o $dir/$i > /tmp/out1.txt
		./busybox strings -afo $dir/$i > /tmp/out2.txt
		diff /tmp/out1.txt /tmp/out2.txt
		if [ $? == 1 ] ; then
			a=1
		fi
	done
done
if [ $a == 0 ] ; then
	echo "PASSED"
else
	echo "FAILED"
fi
a=0
echo "Test n°2: ls | strings -ao."
for dir in /bin /sbin /usr/bin /usr/sbin
do
	for i in `ls -1 $dir`
	do
	ls -1 /bin/ | strings -a -t o > /tmp/out1.txt
	ls -1 /bin/ | ./busybox strings -ao > /tmp/out2.txt
		diff /tmp/out1.txt /tmp/out2.txt
		if [ $? == 1 ]; then
			a=1
		fi
	done
done
if [ $a == 0 ] ; then
	echo "PASSED"
else
	echo "FAILED"
fi
rm -f  /tmp/out1.txt  /tmp/out2.txt

#end of script

I cannot  see differences with the output of the real strings program. 

Testing Busybox strings applet vs real strings.
Test n°1: strings -afo file.
PASSED
Test n°2: ls | strings -ao.
PASSED

So it seems to me that there must be something different on your system (what do you use?).

Best regards and 
Ciao,
Tito