Finding the bitness of an arbitrary executable with Python

[Robert Kern]

On 5/9/11 3:52 PM, Andrew Berg wrote:
> I need to find whether a given file is 32-bit or 64-bit (and raise an
> exception if the file doesn't exist or isn't an executable file). I
> thought platform.architecture() would do this, but it returns ('64bit',
> '') no matter what value I assign to the executable parameter (looks
> like it uses the given executable to find info on the underlying system
> rather than info on the specific file, reverting to sys.executable if
> there are any errors).

Actually, that information is built into the Python interpreter when it gets 
built. It is not actually examining the file referenced by sys.executable.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco