References

This document brings together many of the existing resources that describe PDB and describes the file format at a level of detail sufficient for implementing some tools.

The primary sources for this document:

• Microsoft published a GitHub repository: https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-pdb. This contains a snapshot of some of the PDB sources, including header files that describe data structures and a pdbdump tool. Microsoft has not updated this repo in years, and recently marked it as "archived." It does not accept pull requests.

  The following paths with the microsoft-pdb repo contain useful information:

  • langapi/include/cvinfo.h – Many essential definitions for CodeView debug info, including the LF_* and S_* constants and structures which define the fixed-size portion of many type and symbol records.

  • langapi/include/cvexefmt.h – CodeView definitions for executables.

  • langapi/include/pdb.h – The API for the PDB reader/writer library. This is an implementation detail and does not contain descriptions of the file structures. However, it is useful for seeing the operations defined by the implementation.

  • PDB/src/tools/cvdump/dumppdb.cpp – Dumps information in PDBs.

  • PDB/dbi/pdb.cpp – The PDB reader/writer library.

  • PDB/dbi/dbi.cpp and dbi.h – Code which can read the Debug Information (DBI) Stream.

  • PDB/dbi/gsi.cpp and gsi.h – Code which can read the Global Symbol Index (GSI) Stream.

  • PDB/dbi/mod.cpp and mod.h – Code which can read Module Information Streams (aka mod or modi streams).

  As a resource, this repository is useful but incomplete. It does not describe all of the information in PDBs and it does not describe invariants or relationships. Still, it has been a valuable resource for the external developers who created the LLVM web site, and various other tools for reading PDBs.

• The LLVM Project provides The PDB File Format. This web site covers some of the basics of PDB, enough to write a simple PDB reader for a subset of the information in PDBs. It is not comprehensive. Some of the information in this web site is incorrect.

• The https://github.com/willglynn/pdb repository. This is an open source library (MIT and Apache dual-licensed), implemented in Rust, which can read some information from PDBs.

• The https://github.com/MolecularMatters/raw_pdb repository. This is an open source library (BSD 2-clause), implemented in C++, which can read some information from PDBs.

• The microsoft-pdb repository. Contains documentation and implementation for PDB and CodeView. In many ways, this is the most authoritative public implementation resource for PDB, but it is not a document and not a reference. The repository was provided as a resource by Microsoft, primarily as an aid for the LLVM Project. The source code in it is not complete (not buildable) and the repository has been archived.

  In the microsoft-pdb repository, the cvinfo.h header contains many CodeView definitions but does not document their semantics.

• [CODEVIEW] The CodeView specification for type records and symbol records. This information has been published by Microsoft previously, but is not currently offered.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_database

• CodeView, the MS debug info format, in LLVM

  (Reid Kleckner) Describes the progress and status of the LLVM Project's effort to support CodeView and PDB.

  Reid's YouTube talk at 2016 LLVM Developers' Meeting

• Microsoft published MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf in 2004, which contains extensive documentation on the CodeView type and symbol records. It has been archived repeatedly on the Internet.

  • Example: https://github.com/mfichman/jogo/blob/master/notes/MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf