By Greg Law
DWARF, ELF, dwo, dwp - What are They All?
Debugging tools (debuggers, checkers, tracers, time-travel debuggers) all rely on debug info to map from the executable back to the source-code. This talk covers what exactly is in debug info, the different compiler options to control its generation, and the different kind of object files and why you might want them (e.g. split dwarf files for quicker loading). We also introduce ways to manage this information, including the new debuginfod service.
Many different Linux debugging tools are available - as well as the traditional debuggers (GDB, LLDB) we have checkers (Valgrind, the sanitizers), tracing tools (strace, ltrace), time-travel debuggers (rr, UDB). They all rely on debug info to map from the executable back to the source-code. Most of us know to pass the -g option to gcc to generate debuggable binaries, but there is much more to it than that.
This talk covers what exactly is in debug info, the different compiler options to control its generation, and the different kind of object files and why you might want them (e.g. split dwarf files for quicker loading). We also introduce ways to manage this information, including the new debuginfod service.
As is usual for Greg’s talks: few slides, many demos.
This talk will give the information you need in order to use the available tooling more effectively, and to troubleshoot when the debug experience doesn’t quite "just work".
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