.TH elf-arch 1
.SH NAME
elf-arch \- recognize architecture of an ELF executable/shlib
.SH SYNOPSIS
.TP
.BI "elf-arch " <file>
says the arch of given binary
.TP
.BR elf-arch " " -a " " \fI<arch> " " \fI<file>
checks if \fI<file>\fR matches ABI \fI<arch>\fR
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fBelf-arch\fR 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.
.SS "\fB-a\fR" \fI<arch>\fR
With this option, elf-arch instead of printing the detected architecture
will check if \fI<arch>\fR 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.