Monday, August 13, 2007

Symbol table tab completion

I just stumbled over a feature which is either new or I didn't realize before.
It is support of tab completion in the command window.

When I'm going to set a breakpoint I normall execute an 'x' command with a good guess about the signature:
E.g. :

x kernel32!*ToWideChar

Giving:
7c809bf8 kernel32!MultiByteToWideChar =

Then I can set the breakpoint either by:
bp 7c809bf8
or
bp kernel32!MultiByteToWideChar

Now by accident (I'm used to that from the console) I wrote just a few letters and pressed the tab key and surprise windbg did the rest ;-)

Try the following:

1.) bp ker<2*tab> gives bp kernel32!
2.) bp kernel32!Mul gives bp kernel32!MultiByteToWideChar
3.) and the breakpoint is set

Those little enhancements can significantly make your life easier.

I observed it with windbg 6.7.5.1. Please tell me if it was there before and I'm telling old stories.

Cheers,
Volker

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With Windbg 6.7.5.0 (which I keep around for managed stack traces) your first example does not seem to work but the second one does (i.e., function name completion works but not module name completion).

Nice to see these nice helper features in new Windbgs. Would be even nicer to see them documented.