gdb fails unders win95?

gdb fails unders win95?

[fdebruin]

I am trying to use the debugger that comes with
gnat (version 3.11p). It fails with the following
message:


[failed reading symbols from DLL]
"C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM/MSVCRT.DLL": can't read
symbols: File format not recognized.


Does someone know how to remedy this?

Frank de Bruin
fdebruin@xs4all.nl


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Re: gdb fails unders win95?

[James S. Rogers]

Without knowing the details of this particular DLL file, I know there
are a couple of possibilities:

1. The DLL was compiled using a symbol format other than COFF

2. The DLL was compiled without debug symbols.

My guess is that the DLL was compiled without debug symbols.
If debug symbols were left in the file, anybody could recreate the source
code by simply running a debugger. This is not so easily done without
debug symbols.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado
fdebruin@my-dejanews.com wrote in message <7i620s$cp5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>I am trying to use the debugger that comes with
>gnat (version 3.11p). It fails with the following
>message:
>
>
>[failed reading symbols from DLL]
>"C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM/MSVCRT.DLL": can't read
>symbols: File format not recognized.
>
>
>Does someone know how to remedy this?
>
>Frank de Bruin
>fdebruin@xs4all.nl
>
>
>--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
>---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---

Re: gdb fails unders win95?

[Stephen Leake]

fdebruin@my-dejanews.com writes:

> I am trying to use the debugger that comes with
> gnat (version 3.11p). It fails with the following
> message:
> 
> 
> [failed reading symbols from DLL]
> "C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM/MSVCRT.DLL": can't read
> symbols: File format not recognized.
> 
> 
> Does someone know how to remedy this?

This above means gdb did not totally _fail_, it just doesn't have
debug information for that DLL. You can still use it to debug your
code.

gdb has not yet been taught how to understand Microsoft debugging
format, and probably never will.

So the "remedy" is to just ignore these messages, and keep on going.

-- Stephe

Re: gdb fails unders win95?

[David Botton]

Why not?

Stephen Leake wrote:
> gdb has not yet been taught how to understand Microsoft debugging
> format, and probably never will.

Re: gdb fails unders win95?

[Robert Dewar]

In article <374B5779.A93E4855@Botton.com>,
  David Botton <David@Botton.com> wrote:
> Why not?
>
> Stephen Leake wrote:
> > gdb has not yet been taught how to understand Microsoft
debugging
> > format, and probably never will.

Because, last I knew, this was a proprietary format whose
details are not published by Microsoft. Yes, it might be
possible to reverse engineer this, but after the Stacker
decision, you pause before relying on RE!

If this is wrong, and MS has indeed published the format, there
is no reason why it should not be supported, but of course it
needs someone to do the work!


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Re: gdb fails unders win95?

[fdebruin]

In article <ubtf8n9f2.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>,
  Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> fdebruin@my-dejanews.com writes:
> > [failed reading symbols from DLL]
> > "C:/WINDOWS/SYSTEM/MSVCRT.DLL": can't read
> > symbols: File format not recognized.
> >
> >
> > Does someone know how to remedy this?
>
> This above means gdb did not totally _fail_, it just doesn't have
> debug information for that DLL. You can still use it to debug your
> code.
>
Thanks for this pointer!

I guess I was put off too quickly by this warning message. I have no
need to debug this DLL thing and I will have another go at debugging my
code.

Frank


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