After years of experience I wouldn't use "file" for anything I needed to work reliably. If the test is really ELF or not ELF, how about detecting the ELF header magic directly? $ if [[ $(dd if="/bin/ls" status=none bs=4 count=1) == $'\x7fELF' ]]; then echo elf ; else echo not-elf; fi elf $ if [[ $(dd if="/etc/passwd" status=none bs=4 count=1) == $'\x7fELF' ]]; then echo elf ; else echo not-elf; fi not-elf Rich. -- Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com Fedora Windows cross-compiler. Compile Windows programs, test, and build Windows installers. Over 100 libraries supported. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/MinGW _______________________________________________ packaging mailing list -- packaging@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to packaging-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/packaging@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure