Explaining Debugging Symbols in MSVC++6

Question

How would you explain "symbols" in a way that a novice programmer like myself would understand?

What are they? Are they some sort of mapping to functions?

I would like to learn more advanced debugging techniques and this term has been a roadblock for me.

Answer 1

Just so future searchers can have an easier time, I found some great resources on the topic..

• Here
• Here
• and here..

Answer 2

A possibly simpler MSVC++ 6 answer for a novice than the wikipedia article is as follows;

Symbols are links between an executable file being debugged and it's source, stored in a .PDB (symbolic information) file. If I am debugging an executable, or my EXE crashes and I end up in the debugger, and I have associated symbolic information, I will be able to view what's going on in terms of my C++ source code, assuming the source is available. If I don't have this information, I'll be shown x86 assembly / machine code.

For this reason, on test machines, it is often a good idea to supply the PDB and a debugger to the tester, as in the event of a crash, you'll be able to figure out why it happened. No PDB and debugger, and you'll have to recreate the crash on your development PC, which can be difficult.

Answer 3

Try this: Debug Symbols