GDB(1)

📦 version 18.1, in arch rolling

🌸 GDB(1) — the GNU Debugger, bestie edition 🌸

okay so this is the manual page for gdb, from the GNU Development Tools fam, and literally it's about to be your new best friend 💖

✨ NAME ✨

gdb — The GNU Debugger. yes that's it, that's the name, iconic 👑

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

gdb [OPTIONS] [prog|prog procID|prog core]

that's the whole vibe. options, then a program, or a program + a process ID, or a program + a core file 🦋

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so the entire point of a debugger like GDB is that it lets you peek at what's going on "inside" another program while it's running — or, and this is the part that saves your life at 3am, what another program was doing at the exact moment it crashed 😭

GDB does four main kinds of things (plus other supporting stuff) to help you catch bugs in the act:

  • Start your program, and let you specify anything that might affect its behavior.
  • Make your program stop on specified conditions.
  • Examine what has happened when your program has stopped.
  • Change things in your program, so you can experiment with correcting the effects of one bug and go on to learn about another.

you can use GDB to debug programs written in C, C++, Fortran and Modula-2. slay, multilingual queen 🌈

You invoke GDB with the shell command gdb. Once it's started, it reads commands from the terminal until you tell it to exit with the GDB command quit or exit. And you can always get online help from GDB itself with the command help 🫶

You can run gdb with no arguments or options, but ngl the most usual way to start it is with one or two arguments, naming an executable program:

gdb program

You can also start with both an executable program and a core file specified:

gdb program core

Or, instead, you can specify a process ID as a second argument, or use the option -p, if you want to debug a running process:

gdb program 1234
gdb -p 1234

either of those would attach GDB to process 1234. and with option -p you can omit the program filename entirely, periodt ✨

🧚 the most frequently needed GDB commands (your starter pack) 🧚

  • break [file:][function|line] — Set a breakpoint at function or line (in file).
  • run [arglist] — Start your program (with arglist, if specified).
  • bt — Backtrace: display the program stack.
  • print expr — Display the value of an expression.
  • c — Continue running your program (after stopping, e.g. at a breakpoint).
  • next — Execute next program line (after stopping); step over any function calls in the line.
  • edit [file:]function — look at the program line where it is presently stopped.
  • list [file:]function — type the text of the program in the vicinity of where it is presently stopped.
  • step — Execute next program line (after stopping); step into any function calls in the line.
  • help [name] — Show information about GDB command name, or general information about using GDB.
  • quit
  • exit — Exit from GDB.

For the full details on GDB, see Using GDB: A Guide to the GNU Source-Level Debugger, by Richard M. Stallman and Roland H. Pesch 🥰 The same text is available online as the gdb entry in the info program.

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

okay so first, the ground rules, because GDB is a little particular and honestly same:

Any arguments other than options specify an executable file and core file (or process ID); that is, the first argument encountered with no associated option flag is equivalent to a --se option, and the second, if any, is equivalent to a -c option if it's the name of a file. Many options have both long and abbreviated forms; both are shown here. The long forms are also recognized if you truncate them, so long as enough of the option is present to be unambiguous 👑

The abbreviated forms are shown here with - and long forms are shown with -- to reflect how they are shown in --help. However, GDB recognizes all of the following conventions for most options:

"--option=value"
"--option value"
"-option=value"
"-option value"
"--o=value"
"--o value"
"-o=value"
"-o value"

All the options and command line arguments you give are processed in sequential order. The order makes a difference when the -x option is used. (yes, order matters, no cap 💀)

  • --help, -h — List all options, with brief explanations.
  • --symbols=file, -s file — Read symbol table from file.
  • --write — Enable writing into executable and core files.
  • --exec=file, -e file — Use file as the executable file to execute when appropriate, and for examining pure data in conjunction with a core dump.
  • --se=file — Read symbol table from file and use it as the executable file.
  • --core=file, -c file — Use file as a core dump to examine.
  • --command=file, -x file — Execute GDB commands from file.
  • --eval-command=command, -ex command — Execute given GDB command.
  • --init-eval-command=command, -iex — Execute GDB command before loading the inferior.
  • --directory=directory, -d directory — Add directory to the path to search for source files.
  • --nh — Do not execute commands from ~/.config/gdb/gdbinit, ~/.gdbinit, ~/.config/gdb/gdbearlyinit, or ~/.gdbearlyinit.
  • --nx, -n — Do not execute commands from any .gdbinit or .gdbearlyinit initialization files.
  • --quiet, --silent, -q — "Quiet". Do not print the introductory and copyright messages. These messages are also suppressed in batch mode.
  • --batch — Run in batch mode. Exit with status 0 after processing all the command files specified with -x (and .gdbinit, if not inhibited). Exit with nonzero status if an error occurs in executing the GDB commands in the command files.

Batch mode may be useful for running GDB as a filter, for example to download and run a program on another computer; in order to make this more useful, the message

Program exited normally.

(which is ordinarily issued whenever a program running under GDB control terminates) is not issued when running in batch mode.

  • --batch-silent — Run in batch mode, just like --batch, but totally silent. All GDB output is suppressed (stderr is unaffected). This is much quieter than --silent and would be useless for an interactive session.

This is particularly useful when using targets that give Loading section messages, for example.

heads up 🫶 note that targets that give their output via GDB, as opposed to writing directly to stdout, will also be made silent.
  • --args prog [arglist], --no-escape-args prog [arglist] — Change interpretation of command line so that arguments following either of these options are passed as arguments to the inferior. As an example, take the following command:
gdb ./a.out -q

It would start GDB with -q, not printing the introductory message. On the other hand, using:

gdb --args ./a.out -q

starts GDB with the introductory message, and passes the option -q to the inferior.

The difference between --args and --no-escape-args is whether GDB applies escapes to the arguments it sees:

gdb --args ./a.out *.c

in this case the *.c is expanded by the shell that invokes GDB, the list of matching files will be fixed in the inferior argument list. If instead this is used:

gdb --args ./a.out '*.c'

then the shell that invokes GDB will not expand *.c, instead GDB will escape the * character, so when a.out is invoked it will be passed a literal *.c. If instead this is used:

gdb --no-escape-args ./a.out '*.c'

now GDB will not escape the * character. When the inferior is invoked the *.c will be expanded, and the inferior will be passed the list of files as present at the time the inferior is invoked.

This change of behaviour can be important if the list of matching files could change between the time that GDB is started, and the time the inferior is started. (sneaky little timing thing, iykyk 💀)

  • --pid=pid — Attach GDB to an already running program, with the PID pid.
  • --tui — Open the terminal user interface.
  • --readnow — Read all symbols from the given symfile on the first access.
  • --readnever — Do not read symbol files.
  • --return-child-result — GDB's exit code will be the same as the child's exit code.
  • --configuration — Print details about GDB configuration and then exit.
  • --version — Print version information and then exit.
  • --cd=directory — Run GDB using directory as its working directory, instead of the current directory.
  • --data-directory=directory, -D — Run GDB using directory as its data directory. The data directory is where GDB searches for its auxiliary files.
  • --fullname, -f — Emacs sets this option when it runs GDB as a subprocess. It tells GDB to output the full file name and line number in a standard, recognizable fashion each time a stack frame is displayed (which includes each time the program stops). This recognizable format looks like two \032 characters, followed by the file name, line number and character position separated by colons, and a newline. The Emacs-to-GDB interface program uses the two \032 characters as a signal to display the source code for the frame.
  • -b baudrate — Set the line speed (baud rate or bits per second) of any serial interface used by GDB for remote debugging.
  • -l timeout — Set timeout, in seconds, for remote debugging.
  • --tty=device — Run using device for your program's standard input and output.

🦋 ENVIRONMENT 🦋

sooo this section is literally empty in the original — no environment variables listed, nothing to see here bestie, moving on 💜

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

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. go off 👑

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

Copyright (c) 1988-2026 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."

and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀 tysm for reading, this was gdb-18.1, dated 2026-09-25, and it's giving "go debug something iconic" — mwah 💖✨

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