When parsing a linespec without an enclosing symbol, add_sal_to_sals (linespec.c:888) assigns "canonical->suffix = NULL;", but then, in decode_line_full (linespec.c:2462) we have "gdb_assert(state->canonical_names[i].suffix != NULL);" Although the case is hard to tickle--I only found it myself with an object file with an erroneous line table entry--GDB shouldn't crash, and recovery is quite straight-forward. The following patch simply assigns the symbol name as "" instead of NULL, allowing the debugger to make forward progress in the face of an erroneous debug line table entry. Sterling gdb/ChangeLog 2013-12-17 Sterling Augustine * linespec.c (add_sal_to_sals): Use "" when a symbol isn't found.