Tab completion interrupt for large binaries

Question

If I accidentally launch tab completion when debugging large binary, gdb will freeze for some time scanning symbol table (up to 1 minute in my case). So I have to wait until whole symbol table is scanned. Is there any way to interrupt this process in gdb?

Answer 1

There are still open bugs on tab completion in gdb Bugzilla:

• Bug 11920 - tab completion might stall cli without any feedback
• Bug 15548 - Limit completions to a pre-defined limit when completions list is very large

Edit: gdb 7.10.0 has a max-completions variable with a default of 200.

Answer 2

Control c should interrupt it. Have you tried that?

If it doesn't work, you may need a more recent version of gdb.