Bug#905959: please add a tool answering the question "does executable / shared library / object file X plausibly match Debian architecture Y?"

[Helmut Grohne <helmut@subdivi.de>]

Package: arch-test
Version: 0.12-2
Severity: wishlist

Hi Adam,

The question "Does executable / shared libary / object file X plausibly
match Debian architecture Y?" needs to be answered in a number of
places. Most of them relate to QA in some way or another.

I am aware of the following implementations:
 * linian
   https://salsa.debian.org/lintian/lintian/blob/master/data/binaries/arch-regex
 * rebootstrap function "check_arch"
   https://salsa.debian.org/helmutg/rebootstrap/blob/master/bootstrap.sh#L120
 * The lintian implementation references one in emdebian-tools.
 * I have another implementation for performing my cross builds.
 * You said that qemu-user-binfmt also has an implementation, but I'm
   not sure whether it really tells Debian archs apart.

All of them work based on examining the output of file. Duplicating this
work costs time and basing it on file costs extra time as the output
changes over time. The latter causes implementations to differ. For
instance, lintian presently lacks support for mipsr6, mipsr6el, nios2,
or1k, riscv64 and sh3.

It would be nice if we could have some central tool that answers this
question such that the maintenance effort is deduplicated.

If arch-test is not the place to centralize this, please close this bug.

Helmut