DWARF is a widely used, standardized debugging data format. DWARF was originally designed along with Executable and Linkable Format (ELF), although it is independent of object file formats.[1] The name is a medieval fantasy complement to "ELF" that had no official meaning, although the name "Debugging With Arbitrary Record Formats" has since been proposed as a backronym.[1]
DWARF originated with the C compiler and sdb debugger in Unix System V Release 4 (SVR4).[1]