dwp

package DWARF debugging information

TLDR

Package several .dwo files into a single .dwp

$ dwp -o [out.dwp] [a.dwo] [b.dwo]

Package all .dwo files referenced from an executable

$ dwp -e [program] -o [program.dwp]

List .dwo files to package from a response file

$ dwp @[dwo_list.txt] -o [out.dwp]

Show help and exit

$ dwp -h

SYNOPSIS

dwp [-e executable] [-o output.dwp] [dwo-file...]

dwp (DWARF packaging utility) combines DWARF debugging information from multiple split-DWARF object files (.dwo) into a single package file (.dwp). This is part of the split-DWARF workflow enabled by gcc -gsplit-dwarf or clang -gsplit-dwarf, where the compiler writes most debug data into per-translation-unit .dwo files rather than embedding it in the linked binary.Packaging the .dwo files with dwp keeps debug info distributable as a single file and lets debuggers locate symbols by following the DW_AT_GNU_dwo_name / DW_AT_GNU_dwo_id references stored in the executable.Split DWARF significantly reduces link times and executable sizes while preserving full source-level debugging, which is especially valuable for large C++ codebases.

PARAMETERS

-e executable, --exec executable

Read the list of .dwo files from the DW_AT_GNU_dwo_name attributes inside the given executable or shared library.

-o file, --output file

Write the packaged DWARF to file. Defaults to a.dwp if omitted.

-v, --verbose

Print the name of each .dwo file as it is added.

@file

Read additional command-line arguments (typically .dwo file names) from file, one per line.

-h, --help

Display usage information.

-V, --version

Print version information.

CAVEATS

Requires split-DWARF compilation (-gsplit-dwarf). The debugger must support the .dwp format (recent GDB and LLDB do). With -e, dwp locates .dwo files using their on-disk paths recorded by the compiler; if the build tree has moved, the .dwo files may not be found unless they sit alongside the executable.

HISTORY

dwp is part of GNU binutils and parallels llvm-dwp in the LLVM project. The split-DWARF format and packaging tool were introduced to address compile/link time and binary size in large C++ projects.

dwp