AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide

In general, no command user interfaces or new flags were added to these
commands, with the exception of the XCOFF-specific commands and the lint
command. For most of the commands that deal with XCOFF files, a new flag was
added, -X that requires an argument of either 32, 64, or 32_64. This flag indicates
whether to recognize only 32-bit objects, 64-bit objects, or both. If both -X32 and
-X64 are specified, the command treats it as -X32_64 and recognizes both object
types. If only one of the options is specified, the command ignores all object files
that are not of the specified type. If such objects are specified on the command
line, an error message is issued, but other acceptable objects are still processed.
If the -X option is given with an unrecognized argument, an error message is
printed with the, usage statement and the command exits.
For the same XCOFF-specific commands, the environment variable
OBJECT_MODE determines the XCOFF file type(s) to be recognized. The
defined values of OBJECT_MODE=32, OBJECT_MODE=64, and
OBJECT_MODE=32_64 all have the equivalent function of their -X flag
counterparts. If both the environment variable and the -X flag are specified, the
flag takes precedence over the environment variable. If no -X flag is given and
OBJECT_MODE is unset, 32-bit mode is used. If OBJECT_MODE is set to an
undefined value, an error message is printed, and the command fails unless the
value is overridden on the command line.
66 AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide