GCC C Compiler producing Microsoft debug format?

[Venkatesh Ramamurthy]

Jim:
PDB debug file format are semi-properitery file format
specific to MS compilers. There are some web sites
documenting its structures. The debug information from
the compiler is placed in a separate file with
extensions (.PDB) rather than as a section inside the
object file. 
I am no expert on debug file formats or gcc internals,
eventhough i have used it a lot. But my assumptions
are that PDB file format should be similar to any
standard debug file formats. 
Initially i was looking at some utilites that can
convert coff/dwarf/etc file formats to PDB file
format. I could not find any. 
My other option was to write some extensions to gcc
code which could produce PDB file format naturally. If
you could give me some pointers on that, i would
appreciate it.

There are no GDB remote protocol support for windows
kernel. Besides, there are some excellent kernel
debuggers in windows (SoftICE).

Any help is appreciated.
Cheers
Venkatesh

--- Jim Wilson <wilson@tuliptree.org> wrote:
> Venkatesh Ramamurthy wrote:
> > compiler object files (using cygwin). My main
> issue is
> > the windows debugger understands only PDB format.
> Is
> > it possible for gcc to produce MS PDB format?
> 
> I've never heard of PDB before, and there is no
> mention of it in the gcc 
> or binutils sources, so it is unlikely that there is
> any compatibility 
> support for it.
> 
> You might have better luck asking about this on one
> of the cygwin lists. 
>    They know more about Microsoft specific issues
> than we do.  See
> 	http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/
> 
> A quick search of MSDN shows the PDB are program
> database files that 
> contain debug info.  If this debug is based on a
> standard format like 
> stabs or dwarf of coff/sdb, then it might be
> possible to get this 
> working with a little hackery.  Otherwise, if it is
> a Microsoft designed 
> format, it is likely a significant amount of work to
> implement it.
> 
> I'd suggest using gdb instead of the windows
> debugger, but that may not 
> help you much if you need to debug microsoft code.
> 
> Jim
> 


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