"No Symbolic Information" May Be Caused by Wrong Linker

 Last reviewed: July 17, 1997
Article ID: Q59540
2.20 3.00 3.11 3.14 4.0x 4.10 | 2.20 3.00 3.1x 3.50 | 3.x 4.0x 4.10 
MS-DOS                        | OS/2                | WINDOWS
kbtool

The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft CodeView for MS-DOS, versions 2.2, 3.0, 3.11, 3.14, 4.0, 4.01, 4.05, and 4.1
  • Microsoft CodeView for OS/2, versions 2.2, 3.0, 3.11, 3.12, and 3.5
  • Microsoft CodeView for Windows, versions 3.0, 3.05, 3.06, 3.07, 4.0, 4.01, and 4.1

SYMPTOMS

CodeView generates the message "No Symbolic Information" and displays the program in assembly language mode even though the source files were compiled and linked with the correct options to specify CodeView symbolic debugging information.

CAUSE

Different versions of the linker use different methods to store symbolic information. A later version of CodeView generally can display symbolic information for an application developed with earlier versions of LINK, but the converse is not true. Problems can arise when you use a recent version of LINK with an earlier version of CodeView.

RESOLUTION

To debug an application at the source code level with CodeView, you must use the correct version of Microsoft LINK. Each CodeView version has a corresponding LINK version. If you use a version of LINK released after the version designed for your version of CodeView, CodeView might not recognize the symbolic information in the .EXE file.

MORE INFORMATION

Versions of CodeView earlier than version 4.1 cannot display symbolic information stored in .EXE files produced by LINK versions 5.5 and later. In other words, if you use LINK 5.5 (provided with Visual C++ version 1.0 for Windows), then you can use only CodeView 4.0 to debug the application and display symbolic information.

CodeView versions 4.0 through 4.05 are compatible with LINK versions 5.3 and 5.31.

CodeView versions 3.0 through 3.5 and compatible with LINK versions 5.1 through 5.2.

CodeView 2.35 is compatible only with LINK version 5.05 (both were released with Basic 7.0).

CodeView versions 2.0 through 2.3 are compatible with LINK versions 3.6 through 5.03.

CodeView versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.11 are compatible with LINK versions 3.51 up to, but not including, version 3.6.

Additional reference words: kbinf 2.20 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.10
KBCategory: kbtool
KBSubcategory: CvwIss
Keywords : kb16bitonly

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Last reviewed: July 17, 1997
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