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### 4.8 Killing the Child Process

`kill`

  Kill the child process in which your program is running under GDB.

This command is useful if you wish to debug a core dump instead of a running process. GDB ignores any core dump file while your program is running.

On some operating systems, a program cannot be executed outside GDB while you have breakpoints set on it inside GDB. You can use the `kill` command in this situation to permit running your program outside the debugger.

The `kill` command is also useful if you wish to recompile and relink your program, since on many systems it is impossible to modify an executable file while it is running in a process. In this case, when you next type `run`, GDB notices that the file has changed, and reads the symbol table again (while trying to preserve your current breakpoint settings).