LLVM-DWARFDUMP(1)

📦 version 23.1.3, in centos-stream 9

🌸 NAME 🌸

llvm-dwarfdump — dump and verify DWARF debug information. This is the LLVM manual page (LLVM-DWARFDUMP(1)), and yes bestie, it's giving debug-info main character energy 💅

🛠️ SYNOPSIS 🛠️

Okay so the summoning ritual is literally:

llvm-dwarfdump [options] [filename ...]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

llvm-dwarfdump parses DWARF sections in object files, archives, and .dSYM bundles and prints their contents in human-readable form. Only the .debug_info section is printed unless one of the section-specific options or --all is specified.

If no input file is specified, a.out is used instead. If - is used as the input file, llvm-dwarfdump reads the input from its standard input stream. No cap. 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -a, --all — Dump all supported DWARF sections.
  • --arch=<arch> — Dump DWARF debug information for the specified CPU architecture. Architectures may be specified by name or by number. This option can be specified multiple times, once for each desired architecture. All CPU architectures will be printed by default.
  • -c, --show-children — Show a debug info entry's children when selectively printing with the =<offset> argument of --debug-info, or options such as --find or --name.
  • --color — Use colors in output. Aesthetic? Immaculate. 🌈
  • --error-display=<value> — Set the level of detail and summary to display when verifying. Implies --verify. The supported values are:
    • quiet — Only display whether errors occurred.
    • summary — Display only a summary of the errors found.
    • details — Display each error in detail but no summary.
    • full — Display each error as well as a summary. [default]
  • -f <name>, --find=<name> — Search for the exact text <name> in the accelerator tables and print the matching debug information entries. When there is no accelerator tables or the name of the DIE you are looking for is not found in the accelerator tables, try using the slower but more complete --name option.
  • -F, --show-form — Show DWARF form types after the DWARF attribute types.
  • -h, --help — Show help and usage for this command.
  • --help-list — Show help and usage for this command without grouping the options into categories.
  • -i, --ignore-case — Ignore case distinctions when using --name.
  • -n <name>, --name=<name> — Find and print all debug info entries whose name (DW_AT_name/DW_AT_linkage_name attribute) is <name>.
  • --lookup=<address> — Look up <address> in the debug information and print out the file, function, block, and line table details.
  • -o <path> — Redirect output to a file specified by <path>, where - is the standard output stream.
  • -p, --show-parents — Show a debug info entry's parents when selectively printing with the =<offset> argument of --debug-info, or options such as --find or --name.
  • --parent-recurse-depth=<N> — When displaying debug info entry parents, only show them to a maximum depth of <N>.
  • --quiet — Use with --verify to not emit to STDOUT.
  • -r <N>, --recurse-depth=<N> — When displaying debug info entries, only show children to a maximum depth of <N>.
  • --show-section-sizes — Show the sizes of all debug sections, expressed in bytes.
  • --show-sources — Print all source files mentioned in the debug information. Absolute paths are given whenever possible.
  • --statistics — Collect debug info quality metrics and print the results as machine-readable single-line JSON output. The output format is described in the section below (FORMAT OF STATISTICS OUTPUT).
  • --summarize-types — Abbreviate the description of type unit entries.
  • -t, --filter-child-tag — Only dump children whose DWARF tag is one of the specified tags. Example usage:
llvm-dwarfdump -t DW_TAG_structure_type -t DW_TAG_member -c
  • -x, --regex — Treat any <name> strings as regular expressions when searching with --name. If --ignore-case is also specified, the regular expression becomes case-insensitive.
  • -u, --uuid — Show the UUID for each architecture.
  • --diff — Dump the output in a format that is more friendly for comparing DWARF output from two different files.
  • -v, --verbose — Display verbose information when dumping. This can help to debug DWARF issues.
  • --verify — Verify the structure of the DWARF information by verifying the compile unit chains, DIE relationships graph, address ranges, and more.
  • --verify-json=<path> — Output JSON-formatted error summary to the file specified by <path>. Implies --verify. The output format is described in the section below (FORMAT OF VERIFY JSON OUTPUT).
  • --version — Display the version of the tool.

Okay bestie, here's the section-dump squad. These all dump the specified DWARF section by name. Only the .debug_info section is shown by default. Some entries support adding an =<offset> as a way to provide an optional offset of the exact entry to dump within the respective section. When an offset is provided, only the entry at that offset will be dumped, else the entire section will be dumped.

The --debug-macro option prints both the .debug_macro and the .debug_macinfo sections.

The --debug-frame and --eh-frame options are aliases, in cases where both sections are present one command outputs both.

  • --debug-abbrev — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-addr — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-aranges — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-cu-index — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-frame [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --debug-gnu-pubnames — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-gnu-pubtypes — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-info [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --debug-line [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --debug-line-str — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-loc [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --debug-loclists [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --debug-macro — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-names — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-pubnames — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-pubtypes — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-ranges — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-rnglists — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-str — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-str-offsets — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-tu-index — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --debug-types [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --eh-frame [=<offset>] — Dump the specified DWARF section by name. Supports optional =<offset>.
  • --gdb-index — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --apple-names — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --apple-types — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --apple-namespaces — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --apple-objc — Dump the specified DWARF section by name.
  • --show-variable-coverage — Show per-variable coverage metrics. The output format is described in the section below (FORMAT OF VARIABLE COVERAGE OUTPUT).
  • --coverage-baseline — File to use as the baseline for variable coverage statistics (implies --show-variable-coverage).
  • --variable-coverage-bitcode-file — File containing LLVM IR (bitcode or textual) used for calculating variable definedness in coverage statistics (implies --show-variable-coverage).
  • --combine-inline-variable-instances — Use with --show-variable-coverage to average variable coverage across inlined subroutine instances instead of printing them separately.
  • @<FILE> — Read command-line options from <FILE>.

📊 FORMAT OF STATISTICS OUTPUT 📊

The --statistics option generates single-line JSON output representing quality metrics of the processed debug info. These metrics are useful to compare changes between two compilers, particularly for judging the effect that a change to the compiler has on the debug info quality.

The output is formatted as key-value pairs. The first pair contains a version number. The following naming scheme is used for the keys:

  • variables ==> local variables and parameters
  • local vars ==> local variables
  • params ==> formal parameters

For aggregated values, the following keys are used:

  • sum_of_all_variables(...) ==> the sum applied to all variables
  • #bytes ==> the number of bytes
  • #variables - entry values ... ==> the number of variables excluding the entry values etc.

🧾 FORMAT OF VERIFY JSON OUTPUT 🧾

The format of the JSON output created by the --verify-json is:

{
  "error-categories": {
    "<first category description>": {"count": 1234},
    "<next category description>": {"count": 4321}
  },
  "error-count": 5555
}

The following is generated if there are no errors reported:

{
  "error-categories": {},
  "error-count": 0
}

📈 FORMAT OF VARIABLE COVERAGE OUTPUT 📈

The --show-variable-coverage option differs from --statistics by printing per-variable debug info coverage metrics based on the number of source lines covered instead of the number of instruction bytes. Compared to counting instruction bytes, this is more stable across compilations and better reflects the debugging experience. The output is a tab-separated table containing the following columns:

  • Function ==> Name of the function the variable was found in
  • InstanceCount (when --combine-inline-variable-instances is specified) ==> Number of instances of the function; this is 1 for functions that have not been inlined, and n+1 for functions that have been inlined n times
  • InlChain (when --combine-inline-variable-instances is not specified) ==> Chain of call sites (file and line number) that the function has been inlined into; this will be empty if the function has not been inlined
  • Variable ==> Name of the variable
  • Decl ==> Source location (file and line number) of the variable's declaration
  • LinesCovered ==> Number of source lines covered by the variable's debug information in the input file
  • Baseline (empty if --coverage-baseline is not specified) ==> Number of source lines covered by the variable's debug information in the baseline
  • CoveredRatio (empty if --coverage-baseline is not specified) ==> Ratio of the coverage compared to the baseline (calculated as LinesCovered/Baseline)
  • LinesPresent (empty if --coverage-baseline is not specified) ==> Number of source lines covered in the variable's baseline debug information that are also present in the input file's line table
  • LinesPresentRatio (empty if --coverage-baseline is not specified) ==> Ratio of the line table coverage compared to the baseline (calculated as LinesPresent/Baseline)

🚪 EXIT STATUS 🚪

llvm-dwarfdump returns 0 if the input files were parsed and dumped successfully. Otherwise, it returns 1.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

dsymutil(1)

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Maintained by the LLVM Team (https://llvm.org/).

2003-2026, LLVM Project

Bye bestie 💖 — this page is LLVM 23, dated 2026-10-06, and that's the LLVM-DWARFDUMP(1) footer tea ☕

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