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)