GDB(1)

NAME
gdb - The GNU Debugger

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

DESCRIPTION
The purpose of a debugger such as ROCGDB is to allow you to see what is going on "inside" another program while it executes -- or what another program was doing at the moment it crashed.

ROCGDB can do four main kinds of things (plus other things in support of these) to help you catch bugs in the act:

•   Start your program, specifying 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 ROCGDB to debug programs written in C, C++, Fortran and Modula-2.

ROCGDB is invoked with the shell command "gdb". Once started, it reads commands from the terminal until you tell it to exit with the ROCGDB command "quit" or "exit". You can get online help from ROCGDB itself by using the command "help".

You can run "gdb" with no arguments or options; but the most usual way to start ROCGDB is with one argument or two, specifying an executable program as the argument:

        gdb program

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

        gdb program core

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

        gdb program 1234
        gdb -p 1234

would attach ROCGDB to process 1234. With option -p you can omit the program filename.

Here are some of the most frequently needed ROCGDB commands:

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 ROCGDB command name, or general information about using ROCGDB.

quit
exit
    Exit from ROCGDB.

For full details on ROCGDB, 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
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, ROCGDB 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.

--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 ROCGDB commands from file.

--eval-command=command
-ex command
    Execute given ROCGDB command.

--init-eval-command=command
-iex
    Execute ROCGDB 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 ROCGDB commands in the command files.

    Batch mode may be useful for running ROCGDB 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 ROCGDB control terminates) is not issued when running in batch mode.

--batch-silent
    Run in batch mode, just like --batch, but totally silent. All ROCGDB 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.

    Note that targets that give their output via ROCGDB, 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 ROCGDB with -q, not printing the introductory message. On the other hand, using:

            gdb --args ./a.out -q

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

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

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

    in this case the "*.c" is expanded by the shell that invokes ROCGDB, 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 ROCGDB will not expand "*.c", instead ROCGDB 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 ROCGDB 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 ROCGDB is started, and the time the inferior is started.

--pid=pid
    Attach ROCGDB 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
    ROCGDB'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 ROCGDB using directory as its working directory, instead of the current directory.

--data-directory=directory
-D  Run ROCGDB using directory as its data directory. The data directory is where ROCGDB searches for its auxiliary files.

--fullname
-f  Emacs sets this option when it runs ROCGDB as a subprocess. It tells ROCGDB 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-ROCGDB 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 ROCGDB 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

SEE ALSO
The full documentation for ROCGDB is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the "info" and "gdb" programs and ROCGDB'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
Copyright © 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."

Legal Disclaimer and Copyright Information

AMD ROCm software is made available by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. under the open source license identified in the top-level directory for the library in the repository on @url{https://github.com/ROCm/,Github.com} (Portions of AMD ROCm software are licensed under MITx11 and UIL/NCSA. For more information on the license, review the license.txt in the top-level directory for the library on @url{https://github.com/ROCm/,Github.com}). The additional terms and conditions below apply to your use of AMD ROCm technical documentation.

©2019-2026 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.

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