What is a symbolic file?

Building applicationsProgram,. DLL ,. when sys and other executable files (also known as binary files or images) are used, a certain number of additional files are created. These files are also called symbol files ).

 

Starting from Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, the symbol file only uses the PDB format.

 

A symbolic file usually contains the following content:

• Name and address of the global variable
• Function name, address, and prototype
• Frame Pointer Optimization (FPO) data
• Local variable name and address
• Source file path and line number of each symbol
• Types of variables and structures

There are two types of symbol files: public symbols and private symbols. Public symbols contain a limited number of Symbol Information, which is generally sufficient for debugging modules.

All versions of the operating system released by Microsoft have public symbol packages available for download.

 

From <Windows Advanced debugging>