This Article will describe how to set up MASM and SoftICE to be able to use symbolic debugging.

Well, I have had a pain trying to get masm produced executables to debug correctly with SoftICE. After some kludging I've finally figured it out... Its actually simple to do, but if you dont know what you're doing (or haven't read your manual), its quite a pain. Set these options when you build your project and you should have no problems debugging it with SoftICE.

Setting up the Assssembler

ML /COFF /Zi [...]

The /COFF statement is required to generate the correct object file format to use with SoftICE.
The /Zi option tells the assembler to add symbolic debug info to the object file.

Setting up the Linker

Link /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS /DEBUG /DEBUGTYPE:CV [...]

The /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS statement causes the linker to generate a Windows GUI application. This could be changed to CONSOLE if necessary.
The /DEBUG option tells the linker to include debug info in the exe.
The /DEBUGTYPE:CV option tells the linker to generate CodeView format debug info, which is required by SoftICE.

Setting up SoftICE

This batch file will translate the symbol information and package the source code. This will allow you full symbolic and source level debugging. It will then launch the debugger amd break on the module's entry point (WinMain, DllMain, or DriverEntry). This batch file will completely replace the use of Loader32.exe, giving quick and easy access to the debugger from the command line.

rem DEBUG.BAT
@echo off
nmsym /translate:source,package,always /source:. /load:execute,break %1

Setting up the Paths

Now all you need to do is add your MASM bin directory to the PATH, as shown by the following:

SET PATH = %PATH%;C:\MASM\BIN

You could add this to your autoexec.bat file so that the masm bin directory is always on the path, or you could add it to a custom batch file to set up your programming environment.

Debugging with SoftICE

Note: It is a good idea to have a WinMain function in your source, so that SoftICE will break on it when it loads the program...

Once you have the program laoded into softice you can use the SRC command to toggle between source view, code view, and mixed mode... You can also set breakpoints on your functions by typing BPX MyFunc. BPM MyVar will break on access to a variable. Another useful command is FILE, which is used to change which source file is currently being displayed.

Of course, READ YOUR MANUAL so you really know what your doing...

NOTE: These settings haven't seemed to work for everybody... so if you have problems, or know what I am doing wrong, please let me know.

Copyright (C) 1999 Bill Tyler

Email: BillAsm@usa.net January 25, 1999