Determine Universal App Is Running as a Native or Translated Binary #apple-silicon

check_is_translated.md

Check Universal App Is Running as Native or Translated Binrary

On Apple silicon, arm app is running as native binary and x86_64 app is translated by Rosseta before executing.

Make Test Demo

❯ clang -o arm_proc_translated proc_translated.c -target arm64-apple-macos11
❯ clang -o x86_64_proc_translated proc_translated.c -target x86_64-apple-macos11
❯ lipo -create -output universal_proc_translated x86_64_proc_translated arm_proc_translated
❯ file universal_proc_translated 
universal_proc_translated: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64:Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64]
universal_proc_translated (for architecture x86_64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
universal_proc_translated (for architecture arm64):	Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64

Test:

❯ arch -x86_64 zsh 
❯ ./universal_proc_translated 
processIsTranslated: 1

❯ arch -arm64 zsh
❯ ./universal_proc_translated 
processIsTranslated: 0

References

Determine Whether Your App Is Running as a Translated Binary
Building a Universal macOS Binary

cpu_info.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/sysctl.h>

struct clockinfo getClockinfo(void) {
    int mib[2];
    unsigned int freq;
    size_t len;

    mib[0] = CTL_HW;
    mib[1] = HW_CPU_FREQ;
    len = sizeof(freq);
    sysctl(mib, 2, &freq, &len, NULL, 0);

    printf("%u\n", freq);

    mib[0] = CTL_KERN;
    mib[1] = KERN_CLOCKRATE;
    struct clockinfo clockinfo;
    len = sizeof(clockinfo);
    sysctl(mib, 2, &clockinfo, &len, NULL, 0);
    printf("clockinfo.hz: %d\n", clockinfo.hz);
    printf("clockinfo.tick: %d\n", clockinfo.tick);

    
    return clockinfo;
}

int main() {
    getClockinfo();
}

proc_translated.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/sysctl.h>
#include <errno.h>

int processIsTranslated(void) {
   int ret = 0;
   size_t size = sizeof(ret);
   if (sysctlbyname("sysctl.proc_translated", &ret, &size, NULL, 0) == -1) 
   {
      if (errno == ENOENT)
         return 0;
      return -1;
   }
   return ret;
}

int main() {
    int is = processIsTranslated();
    printf("processIsTranslated: %d\n", is);
}