What is the purpose of pdb files?

Question

I Am using a third party library in one of my .NET projects.

I notice there are a ton of pdb files included in the bin folder - one for each dll. What is the purpose of the pdb file?

Answer 1

They hold the debugging symbol information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_database

Answer 2

A dll is binary so you can't have your code line inside. For instance ,the pdb helps your debugger to show you your code line when you have an exception when you're executing your binaries.

Answer 3

You can remove them on deployment server. They are useless except for debugging purpose.