Getting Started (Debug Interface Access SDK)

  • Article

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

The Debug Interface Access (DIA) SDK supplies you with instructional documentation and a sample that illustrates how to use the DIA API. Use the interfaces and methods in the DIA SDK to develop custom applications that open the .pdb and .dbg files and search their content for symbols, values, attributes, addresses, and other debugging information. This SDK also provides reference tables for the properties associated with symbols found in C++ applications.

To best use the DIA SDK, you should be familiar with the following:

  • C++ programming language

  • COM programming

  • Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) for compiling the samples

    The DIA SDK is normally installed with Visual Studio and its default location is [drive]\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\DIA SDK. As part of the installation, the msdia90.dll, which implements the DIA SDK, is automatically registered so all that you need to do to use it is to include dia2.h in your program and link to diaguids.lib.

    Header: include\dia2.h

    Library: lib\diaguids.lib

    DLL: bin\msdia80.dll

    IDL: idl\dia2.idl

In This Section

Overview
Reviews the basic architecture of DIA.

Querying the .Pdb File
Provides step-by-step instructions on how to use the DIA API to query a .pdb file.

See Also

Debug Interface Access SDK