How do you run the strings tool properly in Mac OSX Mavericks?

Question

How do you run the strings tool properly in Mac OSX Mavericks?

I am trying to run it like this per the examples that I found on the web:

strings -a UserParser.class

But I am getting this error:

error: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/strings: fat file: UserParser.class truncated or malformed (offset plus size of cputype (11078144) cpusubtype (17415) extends past the end of the file)

Answer 1

I had success by using just - instead of -a.

strings - UserParser.class

Answer 2

Another option: install binutils with homebrew. Then use its strings command instead.

For me:

 brew install binutils
 /usr/local/opt/binutils/bin/strings ...