how to find out 32bit or 64bit binaries

[Vimala L]

Hello there.

I wish to find out whether an executable is 64bit or 32bit. Can you please help me with the unix commands to find that?

Thank you,
Vimala.

[U.SivaKumar_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,
#file /bin/binary
will tell you the details.
regards,
U.SivaKumar

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

https://www.beepz.com/personal/merijn/#FAQ

Also tels you about the C compilers and the kernel version/architecture

[Victor_5]

getconf KERNEL_BITS

Man getconf for more.

[Stefan Farrelly]

cd
file * | grep executable | grep ELF-64

Will show 64 bit binaries. Anything else is only 32 bit (eg. PA-RISC1.1 or PA-RISC2.0)

[Cheryl Griffin]

SivaKumar is correct, use file.

It may/may not obvious in many cases. However the following can be used:
PA-RISC1.1 shared executable dynamically linked = 32 bit
ELF-64 shared object file - PA-RISC 2.0 (LP64) = 64 bit

In most cases if it does not explicitly state 64 bit, it's probably not. Another way to see a bit about how it was compiled is to use chatr. Look for references to 64 bit libaries.
# chatr /usr/bin/login
shared library list:
dynamic /usr/lib/libpam.1
dynamic /usr/lib/libsec.2
dynamic /usr/lib/libnsl.1
dynamic /usr/lib/libc.2

A 64 bit library might be:
/ux/libsobj_i80/libs/libc/shared_pa2_64/obj

Cheryl

[Victor_5]

Sorry for my misunderstood, Vimala. I read your post very quilcly but obviously I missed something, file is correct.