Windows Performance Analysis Field Guide

Appendix C

Debug symbols

Abstract

This appendix introduces how to use symbol paths, how to create symbols, and how to create symbol servers.

Keywords

Symbols

Code

Debugging tools

Introduction

To say that the problem is with foo.dll certainly helps, but DLLs and EXEs can have thousands of function calls in them. This would be similar to saying that the person you are looking for is somewhere in a city—it doesn't help much. Symbols are files associated with a specific build of DLL or EXE that translate memory offsets to function calls such as VirtMemTest64.exe+0x232a7c to VirtMemTest64.exe!CpuHogThread where the bang (!) separates the module from the function call. This gives the developer of the application a much more specific location to look at in ...