PDB files

[Frank Rizzo]

As I understand it, having PDB files enables the runtime report the line
numbers where the errors actually occured. So my question is why
wouldn't you distribute PDB files with your application?

Thanks.

 

[carion1]

Performance.

 

[bart_deboeck]

Hi Frank,

Take a look on
http://blogs.msdn.com/jaybaz_ms/archive/2004/06/29/169024.aspx and
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windbg/msg/fcf87c9799217d71.
Performance is no issue if you want to use the command line ;-)

succes,
Bart

http://www.xenopz.com/blog/bartdeboeck/

 

[Richard Grimes]

Hi Frank,

Take a look on
http://blogs.msdn.com/jaybaz_ms/archive/2004/06/29/169024.aspx and

Be careful. JayBaz says:

"Set with 'csc /debug[+|-]'. "

then he says:

"Turning on generation of .pdb files doesn't affect the generated code.
It's orthogonal to the optimization flags. "

The second statement is true, but only for /debugdbonly, it is NOT
true for /debug or /debug+. All versions of /debug (except /debug-, of
course) generate pdb files. The reason is that /debug adds the
[Debuggable] attribute to the assembly which switches off runtime
optimizations and switches on object tracking:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/e...sdebuggableattributeclasstopic.asp?frame=true

/debugdbonly will only generate pdb files and will NOT add
[Debuggable]

Note that deploying pdbs with an assembly means that the exception stack
is richer, but the stack may not be correct because runtime
optimizations may inline code. Of course you can switch that off (the
[Debuggable] attribute, and there's an ini file that can do it too) but
then you will affect your application's performance again.

I really don't like the idea of using customers as testers (which is
suggested if you deploy pdbs), that's the work that your QA department
should do. However, I do understand that if you get a bug report from a
customer you will want to determine what the issue is and fix it. You
have to decide your own policy.

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windbg/msg/fcf87c9799217d71.
Performance is no issue if you want to use the command line ;-)

Indeed. Managed C++ added this feature in 1.1 as well.

Richard