18.1.5.1 Support for DLLs without Debugging Symbols

Very often on windows, some of the DLLs that your program relies on do not include symbolic debugging information (for example, ‘kernel32.dll’). When No value for GDBN doesn't recognize any debugging symbols in a DLL, it relies on the minimal amount of symbolic information contained in the DLL's export table. This section describes working with such symbols, known internally to No value for GDBN as “minimal symbols”.

Note that before the debugged program has started execution, no DLLs will have been loaded. The easiest way around this problem is simply to start the program — either by setting a breakpoint or letting the program run once to completion. It is also possible to force No value for GDBN to load a particular DLL before starting the executable — see the shared library information in Commands to Specify Files, or the dll-symbols command in Features for Debugging MS Windows PE Executables. Currently, explicitly loading symbols from a DLL with no debugging information will cause the symbol names to be duplicated in No value for GDBN's lookup table, which may adversely affect symbol lookup performance.