ARCH(1) User Commands ARCH(1)

NAME

arch - display the architecture of the current host

SYNOPSIS

arch [-k | archname]

DESCRIPTION

The arch utility displays the application architecture of the current
host system. Due to extensive historical use of this command without any
options, all SunOS 5.x SPARC based systems will return "sun4" as their
application architecture. Use of this command is discouraged. See NOTES
section below.


Systems can be broadly classified by their architectures, which define
what executables will run on which machines. A distinction can be made
between kernel architecture and application architecture (or, commonly,
just "architecture"). Machines that run different kernels due to
underlying hardware differences may be able to run the same application
programs.

OPTIONS

-k
Displays the kernel architecture, such as sun4u. This defines
which specific SunOS kernel will run on the machine, and has
implications only for programs that depend on the kernel explicitly
(for example, ps(1)).

OPERANDS

The following operand is supported:

archname
Use archname to determine whether the application binaries
for this application architecture can run on the current host
system. The archname must be a valid application
architecture, such as sun4, i86pc, and so forth.

If application binaries for archname can run on the current
host system, TRUE (0) is returned. Otherwise, FALSE (1) is
returned.

EXIT STATUS

The following exit values are returned:

0
Successful completion.


>0
An error occurred.

SEE ALSO

mach(1), ps(1), uname(1), attributes(7)

NOTES

This command is provided for compatibility with previous releases and its
use is discouraged. Instead, the uname command is recommended. See
uname(1) for usage information.

October 21, 2002 ARCH(1)