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#### gdb-add-index man

### gdb-add-index

gdb-add-index filename

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`. The index file can only be produced on systems which use ELF binaries and DWARF debug information (i.e., sections named `.debug_*`).

`gdb-add-index` uses GDB and `objdump` found in the `PATH` environment variable. If you want to use different versions of these programs, you can specify them through the `GDB` and `OBJDUMP` environment variables.

See more in Index Files Speed Up GDB.