How can I check whether my Perl installation is 32 or 64 bit?

Question

On Windows, how can I check whether my Perl installation is 32 or 64 bit?

Answer 1

If you want to check if it uses 32-bit integers or 64-bit integers, use the following:

perl -V:ivsize      # use Config; say $Config{ivsize}

• If the returned value is 4, your Perl uses 32-bit integers.
• If the returned value is 8, your Perl uses 64-bit integers.

See also: Answer to "What is the perl equivalent of MAX_INT?"

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If you want to check if it uses 32-bit pointers or 64-bit pointers, use the following:

perl -V:ptrsize     # use Config; say $Config{ptrsize}

• If the returned value is 4, your Perl can address 4 GiB of RAM.
• If the returned value is 8, your Perl can address "unlimited" RAM.

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If you want to check if it's a 32-bit program or a 64-bit program, use the following:

perl -V:archname    # use Config; say $Config{archname}

• If the returned value includes x86_64, it's a 64-bit process.
• If the returned value includes x86 (but not x86_64), it's a 32-bit process.

This value is also included in the output of perl -v.

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Note: You shouldn't be checking use64bitint or use64bitall as these indicate what parameters were passed to Configure rather than provide information about what is actually being used.