pdb 0.1.4

A parser for Microsoft PDB (Program Database) debugging information
Documentation

pdb

Build Status

This is a Rust library that parses Microsoft PDB (Program Database) files. These files contain debugging information produced by most compilers that target Windows, including information about symbols, types, modules, and so on.

The PDB format is not documented per sé, but Microsoft has published information in the form of C++ code relating to its use. The PDB format is full of... history, including support for debugging 16-bit executables, COBOL user-defined types, and myriad other features. pdb does not understand everything about the PDB format, but it does cover enough to be useful for typical programs compiled today.

Design

pdb's design objectives are similar to gimli:

  • pdb works with the original data as it's formatted on-disk as long as possible.

  • pdb parses only what you ask.

  • pdb can read PDBs anywhere. There's no dependency on Windows, on the DIA SDK, or on the target's native byte ordering.

Usage Example

extern crate pdb;

use pdb::FallibleIterator;
use std::fs::File;

fn main() {
    let file = std::fs::File::open("fixtures/self/foo.pdb")?;
    let mut pdb = pdb::PDB::open(file)?;
    
    let symbol_table = pdb.global_symbols()?;
    
    let mut symbols = symbol_table.iter();
    while let Some(symbol) = symbols.next()? {
        match symbol.parse() {
            Ok(pdb::SymbolData::PublicSymbol{function: true, segment, offset, ..}) => {
                // we found the location of a function
                println!("{:x}:{:08x} is {}", segment, offset, symbol.name()?);
            }
            _ => {}
        }
    }
}

Example Programs

Run with cargo run --release --example <name>:

  • pdb_symbols is a toy program that prints the name and location of every function and data value defined in the symbol table.

  • pdb2hpp is a somewhat larger program that prints an approximation of a C++ header file for a requested type given only a PDB.

License

Licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

TODO

  • Go from one-copy to zero-copy. The library works with data in-place for as long as possible, and it can in principle operate on a memory mapped PDB, but there's a catch.

    The underlying file format is laid out such that a single logical data stream (which pdb wants to view as a &[u8]) is actually discontinuous on-disk. That shouldn't be a problem – operating systems let you memory map files in appropriate ways – except memmap-rs doesn't currently support mapping discontinuous segments into a continuous memory block.

    pdb today resorts to making a copy using io::Seek + io::Read, and then works on data in-place from there. If we had a way to get discontinuous memory maps, we could drop it in and eliminate that copy.

  • Expose module information.

  • Expose line number information.