How do I determine the target architecture of static library (.a) on Mac OS X?

Question

I'm interested in verifying if a given iPhone static library has been built for ARM or Intel.

Its more curiosity than anything. Is there some kind of Mac OS X or BSD specific tool to do this? This post gives an example in Linux.

Answer 1

file will probably tell you. otool certainly should be able to. But I'd try file first, e.g.

logan:/Users/logan% file d2
d2: Mach-O executable ppc

Example with archive:

logan:/Users/logan% file /usr/lib/libMallocDebug.a
/usr/lib/libMallocDebug.a: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
/usr/lib/libMallocDebug.a (for architecture i386):      current ar archive random library
/usr/lib/libMallocDebug.a (for architecture ppc):       current ar archive

Answer 2

As mentioned earlier, file does not always work. otool -hv is probably the closest thing that is guaranteed to work - it gives architecture information for every single object file in the library.

Example:

% otool -hv /sw/lib/libfftw3.a
Archive : /sw/lib/libfftw3.a
/sw/lib/libfftw3.a(align.o):
Mach header
      magic cputype cpusubtype  caps    filetype ncmds sizeofcmds      flags
MH_MAGIC_64  X86_64        ALL  0x00      OBJECT     3        336 SUBSECTIONS_VIA_SYMBOLS
/sw/lib/libfftw3.a(alloc.o):
Mach header
      magic cputype cpusubtype  caps    filetype ncmds sizeofcmds      flags
MH_MAGIC_64  X86_64        ALL  0x00      OBJECT     3        416 SUBSECTIONS_VIA_SYMBOLS
...

Answer 3

Another option is lipo, it's output is brief and more readable that otool's.

Example:

% lipo -info /usr/lib/libiodbc.a 
Architectures in the fat file: /usr/lib/libiodbc.a are: x86_64 i386 ppc
% lipo -info libnonfatarchive.a
input file libnonfatarchive.a is not a fat file
Non-fat file: libnonfatarchive.a is architecture: i386
%