I am trying to compile a basic c program to get the binary ELF on my Ubuntu x86-64 machine. I want the binary to comply with the DWARF5 format as I am working on writing a .debug_sup section parser. However I am not sure if this is because I have an older version of gcc or am I passing the wrong flags.

I am pretty sure I have the right binutils version for parsing DWARF5 as the release notes here say.

The C- Program I am trying to build is as follows:

#include    <stdio.h>
#include    <stdlib.h>

/*
 * ===  FUNCTION  ======================================================================
 *         Name:  main
 *  Description:
 * =====================================================================================
 */
    int
main ( int argc, char *argv[] )
{
    int a = 10, b = 15;
    int *ptra = &a, *ptrb = &b;
    printf ("a = %d and b = %d\n", *ptra, *ptrb) ;
    ptra = &b;
    ptrb = &a;
    printf ("a = %d and b = %d\n", *ptra, *ptrb) ;
    int ** pptra = &ptra, **pptrb = &ptrb;
    printf ("a = %d and b = %d\n", **pptra, **pptrb) ;
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}               /* ----------  end of function main  ---------- */

I try to compile it using gcc basic_declaration_of_pointer.c -gdwarf-5 however the objdump of the binary still ends up showing older DWARF3 version. The docs here is where I learned about the dwarf version flag. My gcc version is as follows:

gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04.1) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

objdump version

└─❯ objdump --version
GNU objdump (GNU Binutils) 2.37
Copyright (C) 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License version 3 or (at your option) any later version.
This program has absolutely no warranty.