How to visualize this binary file better?

Question

I look at the source code of file and see

I run file script and see

 ELF 64-bit LSB executable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), 
 for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped

I recall that I have been able to read this binary as plain text sometimes and saw that it is filesystem dependent script. However, I forgot how I did it. The script is just splitting a file and just interested in what is the split pattern what it is using. However, with those ^@ signs it is difficult to make sense of it. However, there are rather much text which you can read.

How can you visualize such a binary file better?

Answer 1

I would suggest to use the strings command:

strings script | less

Note that despite its name, script is not a script but a binary executable, as file shows.