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Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 02:24:29 -0700
From: Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
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Subject: Re: Gdb and debug symbol in pdb
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Sergey Tovpeko wrote:

> I've a question about using gdb on windows. I'm debugging a
> program produced by Microsoft compiler. It would be nice of GDB
> to understand debug symbols in Microsoft-specific debug format (PDB).
> Did anyone try to support this format in gdb? I know, it's private.
> But Microsoft provides a big API for analyzing pdb format.

No, to my knowledge no one has ever tried to support PDB format in gdb. 
It sounds like an extremely non-trivial undertaking.  It would not just
be a matter of reading an undocumented file format.  Gdb would have to
be taught all the details of the MSVC C++ ABI -- name mangling, vtable
layout, and so on.  I suppose you could just support C only, but that
would make it useless for a great deal of code.

And on top of that the people who develop gdb are also those who
probably have the least desire to use MS proprietary compilers, as they
tend to have a stake in the gnu toolchain anyway.  Besides, there are
already plenty of debuggers that understand PDB, both Microsoft and
third party, so it would be reinventing a wheel.

You might want to have this discussion on the gdb list, though I'm sure
it's come up before.

Brian

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