C / C++ / MFC

11-Nov-07 3:08

Hello everyone,

Could dumpbin be used to check whether an executable or a DLL (written in Visual Studio C/C++ native unmanaged) is debug version or release version? I use /headers option but can not see any differences.

If dumpbin can not be used to check debug or release, any other tool could be used?

thanks in advance,
George

George_George11-Nov-07 20:09

11-Nov-07 20:09

Hi Luc,

Here is my test result, and debug version/release version are of different size.

1. I have dumped debug and release version, the both of them has only one existence of word *debug*, here it is

24000 [ 1C] RVA [size] of Debug Directory

2. See (1);

3. What do you mean *the presence of the PDB file name at the end of the exe*, could you show more information please?

regards,
George

Luc Pattyn12-Nov-07 2:57

Luc Pattyn

12-Nov-07 2:57

Hi George,

my hex viewer shows this as the very last few bytes in a debug exe:

01EFF0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 "................"
01F000 4E 42 31 30 00 00 00 00 53 3D A9 3F 03 00 00 00 "NB10....S=.?...."
01F010 48 3A 5C 4C 50 5F 70 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 73 5C 5F "H:\LP_projects\_"
01F020 70 75 7A 7A 6C 65 73 5C 62 65 65 6C 64 7A 6F 65 "puzzles\beeldzoe"
01F030 6B 65 72 5C 44 65 62 75 67 5C 62 65 65 6C 64 7A "ker\Debug\beeldz"
01F040 6F 65 6B 65 72 2E 70 64 62 00 "oeker.pdb. "

so what I am suggesting is you either use such tool to look, or you programmatically
verify the file ends on "2E 70 64 62 00"

BTW: I am not sure this ".PDB == debug build" relation always holds true

Smile | :)

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George_George12-Nov-07 4:12

12-Nov-07 4:12

Thanks Luc,

Both of the binaries contains the word PDB. It is so strange. But the size is different and the bigger one (debug version) is debuggable, and the smaller one (release version) is not debuggable (when pressing F5 in Visual Studio 2005, all the break points set before will become invalid).

Any comments or ideas?

regards,
George

Luc Pattyn12-Nov-07 4:57

Luc Pattyn

12-Nov-07 4:57

Hi George, I have one comment: the debug/release divide is not very strict, there are several
compiler and linker switches you can set/clear/specify influencing the kind of code
generated, and the amount of metadata present in the DLL/EXE file.

Visual Studio comes with two predefined configurations, aptly called "Debug" and "Release",
with different switch settings. But you can alter those settings, and you can define
additional configurations.

What is it exactly you hope to achieve?

Smile | :)

Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]

this months tips:
- use PRE tags to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google

George_George12-Nov-07 5:15

12-Nov-07 5:15

Thanks Luc,

I agree with your points. My purpose is to debug the application, i.e. when using F5 in Visual Studio 2005 to execute the debug, the application can stop at break points. But currently, when using F5, all the break points will become invalid.

I am wondering why and suspecting some important options (either compile option or link option is missing) which causes this issue.

Any comments or ideas are welcome.

regards,
George

George_George12-Nov-07 19:04

12-Nov-07 19:04

Thanks Luc!

Sorry that I may not make myself undertood. I am using embedded VC++ 4.0 to develop. Now I installed Visual Studio 2005 and migrate the project files generated by embedded VC++ 4.0 to Visual Studio 2005 using the IDE. But now in Visual Studio 2005 I can not debug it. So, I am confused that there must be some wrong settings which blocks me from debugging in Visual Studio 2005 -- maybe there is something wrong in the migration process or something wrong in the Visual Studio 2005 settings.

regards,
George

JudyL_MD13-Nov-07 1:56

JudyL_MD

13-Nov-07 1:56

Try Luc's suggestion - create a dmnmy project in VS2005 and then compare the settings between the debug version in that one and your migrated project. I'm sure the problem is in the settings since the eVC uses a subset of VS. Also, make sure your settings for the target windows version are also correct to now target a desktop versus a mobile.

Judy

George_George14-Nov-07 1:14

14-Nov-07 1:14

Thanks Judy,

Previously, I think the differences between debug and release version is whether the macro DEBUG and _DEBUG are defined. I think I am wrong. There should be more differences -- i.e. simply adding DEBUG and _DEBUG macros to release version project can not produce debug version project.

Do you have any experiences and knowledge to share what is the settings (e.g. compile options, linker options, etc.) which makes debug and relase version different please?

regards,
George

JudyL_MD14-Nov-07 3:28

JudyL_MD

14-Nov-07 3:28

George_George wrote:
Previously, I think the differences between debug and release version is whether the macro DEBUG and _DEBUG are defined. I think I am wrong

Yes, you are wrong. The differences have always been more than just that define. Things like optimizations (/O), information to include in the output file (/Z), which runtime to include (/MT /MD /L) and more.

George_George wrote:
Do you have any experiences and knowledge to share what is the settings (e.g. compile options, linker options, etc.) which makes debug and relase version different please?

I've never memorized them. Whenever I've wanted to compare, I create a dummy project and then open it in two different instances of VS, one showing release and the other showing debug and compare them. Or just open up the .dsp file in text mode and compare the two sets of options directly. There are too many to know them all. Take my approach and compare them yourself then look them up in the help and see what each one does to really understand why a given setting is appropriate for which mode.

Judy

George_George14-Nov-07 18:22

14-Nov-07 18:22

Hi Judy,

Great reply. I think all the configurations which matter is stored in .vcproj file, right (so I only need to compare with two .vcproj file to see any differences)? The .dsp file you mentioned should be some redundancy information of .vcproj file? Right?

I asked this question is because I am wondering if I only compare the two .vcproj files, whether I will miss some important settings which matter.

regards,
George

JudyL_MD15-Nov-07 2:37

JudyL_MD

15-Nov-07 2:37

.dsp is the project file for VS6 and .vcproj is used for VS2005. I thought you were using 6, my mistake. You're not comparing two different vcproj files, you're comparing two different sections of the same vcproj from your sample project. If you look inside it, you'll find multiple "configuration" sections and within each section, all the different settings.

Judy

George_George15-Nov-07 4:24

How can I get the ID code for

15-Nov-07 4:24

Thanks Judy!

regards,
George

mwolf12211-Nov-07 2:25

mwolf122

11-Nov-07 2:25

I put some CEdit to the dialog, use the same function OnChangeEdit1, when the context of edit box is changed,

such as,

ON_EN_CHANGE(IDC_EDIT1, OnChangeEdit1)
ON_EN_CHANGE(IDC_EDIT2, OnChangeEdit1)
ON_EN_CHANGE(IDC_EDIT3, OnChangeEdit1)

the problem is, I can not decide which edit box has called the function, How can I get the ID for it?

that was just an advice... :(

Hamid_RT11-Nov-07 3:40

Hamid_RT

11-Nov-07 3:40

Does this code helpful?

void CdddDlg::OnEnChangeEdit1()
{
if(GetFocus()==GetDlgItem(IDC_EDIT1))
MessageBox(_T("editbox1"));

if(GetFocus()==GetDlgItem(IDC_EDIT2))
MessageBox(_T("editbox2"));
}

toxcct11-Nov-07 5:37

toxcct

11-Nov-07 5:37

...and for a syntactical point of view, you should always put curved braces for if statements, even it then contains only one instruction...

Justin Perez11-Nov-07 5:53

Justin Perez

11-Nov-07 5:53

toxcct wrote:
...and for a syntactical point of view, you should always put curved braces for if statements, even it then contains only one instruction...

I always put curly braces for if statements, even if it would only be a one-liner. About a month ago, however, I started doing one-liners without the braces. I ran into so many problems from doing this. It took me quite a while to get re-accustomed to my old ways. It's funny, you would think it wouldn't cause any problems, but it did for me.

"If an Indian asked a programming question in the forest, would it still be urgent?" - John Simmons / outlaw programmer

I get all the news I need from the weather report - Paul Simon (from "The Only Living Boy in New York")

Hamid_RT11-Nov-07 7:29

Hamid_RT

11-Nov-07 7:29

Thank you for your advice.;)