NAME

       elf-arch - recognize architecture of an ELF executable/shlib

SYNOPSIS

       elf-arch <file>
              says the arch of given binary

       elf-arch -a <arch> <file>
              checks if <file> matches ABI <arch>

DESCRIPTION

       elf-arch  detects  the kernel ABI needed to run a given binary, and prints its Debian arch
       name.  This doesn't necessarily mean the  arch  can  actually  run  that  program/library:
       markings  available  in  the  ELF  header  are  pretty much restricted to just word width,
       endianness and instruction set family.  Architectures  can  also  differ  by  the  set  of
       syscalls  they use (although these can usually be mixed) or required CPU instructions; you
       can't generally distinguish between those other than trying to run the program.

       The difference usually shows in the kernel refusing to run a binary vs  executing  it  and
       crashing at runtime.

       Thus,  as  far  as ELF markings are concerned, there's often a set of Debian architectures
       which are aliases for the same kernel arch.

   -a <arch>
       With this option, elf-arch instead of printing the detected  architecture  will  check  if
       <arch>  matches  one  of  aliases  for  the  file, and return an exit code: 0 if there's a
       plausible match, non-zero if the given arch won't even try executing that file.

                                                                                      elf-arch(1)