Debugging a release version of a DLL (with PDB file)

Posted by Martin on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Martin
Published on 2009-04-20T20:40:45Z Indexed on 2010/04/14 0:43 UTC
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Filed under:

c#

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debugging

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pdb-ms

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visual-studio-2008

If I have a DLL (that was built in release-mode) and the corresponding PDB file, is it possible to debug (step-into) classes/methods contained in that DLL?

If so, what are the required steps/configuration (e.g. where to put the PDB file)?

Edit:

If have the PDB file in the same place as the DLL (in the bin/debug directory of a simple console test application). I can see that the symbols for the DLL are loaded (in the Output window and also in the Modules window), but still I cannot step into the methods of that DLL.

Could this be the result of compiler optimizations (as described by Michael in his answer)?

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