To start debug mode in Visual C++ 2005, do I have to provide debug version linked library?

Question

Hi there,

I have an annoying problem with the debug mode of Visual C++ 2005. My scientific program uses FFTW3 library which is a FFT transformation calculation library. Sadly, there is no official VC++ pre-compiled version of FFTW3 library. More sadly, compiling FFTW3 from source code with VC++ 2005 is very hard. The FFTW3 official website provides a pre-compiled DLL package which is built with MinGW GCC and is in release mode.

I can link my program with these MinGW version DLLs in Visual C++ 2005 in debug & release mode. But my program exits immediately after start running, so I want to debug my program step by step. The problem happened if I pressed "Debug" button in Visual C++:

'minifun.exe': Loaded 'D:\cygwin\home\minifan\debug\libfftw3f-3.dll', Binary was not built with debug information.

My question is do I have to provide a debug version FFTW3 to VC++ so that I can start the debug mode? Are there any ways that I can avoid it?

The trouble is I cannot get a debug version and VC++ compiled FFTW3 library easily.

Sorry for this long description. I appreciate any inputs from you guys. Thanks a lot!

John Chain

Answer 1

The "Binary was not built with debug information" message is not fatal. It just means that you won't be able to debug into it nor get accurate call stacks through it.

Answer 2

Most probably, it is not because of lack of Debug version of the library. It is probably because of some missing dependancy of the DLL that you are trying to link with. Download Dependency Walker and open the DLL in it. You will get to know what are the DLLs that are missing. The missing dependencies will be Red in color.