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gdb-add-index(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT | COLOPHON 

GDB-ADD-INDEX(1)          GNU Development Tools          GDB-ADD-INDEX(1)

NAME         top

       gdb-add-index - Add index files to speed up GDB

SYNOPSIS         top

       gdb-add-index [-dwarf-5] filename

DESCRIPTION         top

       When GDB finds a symbol file, it scans the symbols in the file in
       order to construct an internal symbol table.  This lets most GDB
       operations work quickly--at the cost of a delay early on.  For
       large programs, this delay can be quite lengthy, so GDB provides a
       way to build an index, which speeds up startup.

       To determine whether a file contains such an index, use the
       command "readelf -S filename": the index is stored in a section
       named ".gdb_index" (pre-DWARF 5) or ".debug_names" and
       ".debug_str" (DWARF 5).  Indexes can only be produced on systems
       which use ELF binaries and DWARF debug information (i.e., sections
       named ".debug_*").

       By default gdb-add-index will add a pre-DWARF 5 ".gdb_index"
       section to filename.  With -dwarf-5 DWARF 5 sections are added
       instead.

       filename must be writable.

       gdb-add-index uses GDB, objcopy, and readelf found in the PATH
       environment variable.  If you want to use different versions of
       these programs, you can specify them through the appropriate
       environment variables (see below).

       gdb-add-index exits with status 0 if it succeeds in creating the
       index for filename or greater than 0 if an error occurs.

       See more in the GDB manual in node "Index Files" -- shell command
       "info -f gdb -n "Index Files"".

OPTIONS         top

       -dwarf-5
           Add DWARF 5 sections instead of previous ".debug_index"
           section.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       GDB Full file name of the "gdb" program to use for index
           generation.  If not set, the PATH will be searched for a "gdb"
           program.

       OBJCOPY
           Full file name of the "objcopy" program to use to copy section
           information into the given file.  If not set, the PATH will be
           searched for a "objcopy" program.

       READELF
           Full file name of the "readelf" program to use to inspect
           properties of the given file.  If not set, the PATH will be
           searched for a "readelf" program.

SEE ALSO         top

       The full documentation for GDB is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
       If the "info" and "gdb" programs and GDB's Texinfo documentation
       are properly installed at your site, the command

               info gdb

       should give you access to the complete manual.

       Using GDB: A Guide to the GNU Source-Level Debugger, Richard M.
       Stallman and Roland H. Pesch, July 1991.

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright (c) 1988-2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
       document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
       Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
       Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "Free Software" and
       "Free Software Needs Free Documentation", with the Front-Cover
       Texts being "A GNU Manual," and with the Back-Cover Texts as in
       (a) below.

       (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You are free to copy and modify
       this GNU Manual.  Buying copies from GNU Press supports the FSF in
       developing GNU and promoting software freedom."

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the gdb (GNU debugger) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/⟩.
       This page was obtained from the tarball gdb-16.2.tar.gz fetched
       from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb/⟩ on 2025-02-02.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the
       page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
       in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

gdb-16.2                        2025-02-01               GDB-ADD-INDEX(1)

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