A simple guide to compiling the DLL

Lemon Merchant · Sep 23, 2011

Terradive said:
1. Yes as best as I could. There are some caveats with this particular .DLL I think, and would like to make sure I haven't missed something else.
2. Yes.
3. see attached doc.

In order to debug with symbols, I believe that you need the Debugging Symbols Library from Microsoft.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg462988.aspx

I have it installed, and it seems to make things go a little more easily when debugging.

Just a thought.

Terkhen · Sep 23, 2011

Terradive: You are getting function names, which means that you have *some* symbols. Otherwise, you would not even get function names in your trace. Maybe I'm getting this part wrong, though

I had a similar issue while trying to debug crashes on Realism Invictus. I believe that the makefile used with RI is different than the one here, but the solution should be similar. My issue was that I did not want to get stacktraces using a debug build, as they have some bogus asserts that slow testing to a crawl. Debug buils were generated with all symbols extracted, but release builds were missing line numbers and variables. I ended up adapting the makefile to generate the same symbols for release builds too.

I don't know how the makefiles are done for in other mods (I have only compiled RI), but in any case make sure that you are not compiling a release build by mistake.

If you are using a debug build, then maybe there is something different with the makefile used by that mod.

Asaf · Sep 25, 2011

@LM - To debug the DLL there's no need for Microsoft's symbols. They're only needed to see system DLL's callstack.

@Terradive - As Terkhen said, you have some symbols. Did you use the makefile from this tutorial? Is your makefile different? If so, can you post it?

Lemon Merchant · Sep 25, 2011

Asaf said:
@LM - To debug the DLL there's no need for Microsoft's symbols. They're only needed to see system DLL's callstack.

Oh neat. Thanks for telling me. I had them loaded to do something else and just assumed they were needed here as well.

Terkhen · Oct 3, 2011

After playing a bit with the source code and Makefiles of a few projects I have tweaked the project files found at this thread a bit. My version includes project files for Visual Studio 2010, and also a nice feature by jaiiderherr from Total Realism / Realism Invictus (I only know the nick from the Subversion repository, please tell me if you know the forum nickname so I can change the credits accordingly).

The Makefile checks Makefile-Vars to know the paths and tools to use. Makefile-Vars.sample is an example of how to create the Makefile-Vars file. This allows to keep the main Makefile unchanged, which is quite nice when you work with a version control system. I have not tested these modifications with Visual Studio 2008, so any feedback regarding that will be welcome.

I also have made a change that allows to ignore the /Zi flag (which includes names and types of variables, as well as functions and line numbers in the debug information) for certain files and keep it for the rest. This seems to be necessary in some mods such as BULL or Realism Invictus, where some files trigger an error about debug symbols. With this modification, you don't need to sacrifice the /Zi flag or to specify all files in the Makefile. An example of how to make this Makefile work with BULL is shown in the attached diff file.

I don't claim any credit for these modifications, but I'm posting them here hoping that they are useful. Thanks again for the tutorial and the files!

Asaf · Oct 5, 2011

Thanks Terkhen! The splitting of the makefile can indeed be useful in some cases.

In VS2010 MS introduced the new MSBuild property pages and it's much more configurable, so I guess the DLL can be compiled without any makefiles at all, and it'll have the advantages of being able to compile just one file, not needing to run make if the project was built and not modified, and being able to set the compiler switches from within the GUI.

But it requires work to prepare this infrastructure, and I'm not that experienced with MSBuild, and definitely don't have the time.

So if anyone's interested...

Terradive · Oct 8, 2011

I was accidently using the makefile in Lor. After I used the correct one, I got a good stack call. Thanks guys!

Sareln · Oct 18, 2011

Solved, see Solution at Bottom

Trying to follow this tutorial to get to breakpoint capability but am running into a problem.

Ran into a problem with Symbols and Breakpoints. Duplicated the problem in both VS2010 and VS2008 (C++ Express both).

I appear to be loading symbols correctly, but my breakpoints are not enabled; I think the following screenshot captures the whole of the situation. Additionally, if I put in some always-triggering fasserts, I can break and see the call stack for the assert with the correct function calls when I'm running debugging.

The new .dll is being correctly copied (tested that with FAssert)
The correct .pdb is being loaded (looked at where it was loading from and the timestamp on it and the dll match).
I've been able to get the .dll to compile and run correctly, but breakpoint-based debugging would be quite helpful at this point now.

I am playing around with the FfH2 .dll for reference. The makefile is the one Danny put together and a copy is on my dropbox here.

Has anyone seen anything similar?

EDIT: Potentially found what was causing the problem. I was running into the error stated here, the compiler limit. Earlier in my debugging I had removed the \Zi flag from my debug compile to get around the compiler limit. I'm now applying the fix talked about here, to break up the too-large define files and will try again with \Zi enabled and see if that helps.

EDIT2: Yeah that was it. So in the future, if anyone sees an error like this (Symbols loaded, breakpoints disabled anyways), make sure that you've set \Zi or an equivalent flag in your makefile. If your project can't compile with \Zi, fix it so that it does by breaking up the file which is too large.

Chazcon · Oct 18, 2011

Asaf said:
Thanks Terkhen! The splitting of the makefile can indeed be useful in some cases.

In VS2010 MS introduced the new MSBuild property pages and it's much more configurable, so I guess the DLL can be compiled without any makefiles at all, and it'll have the advantages of being able to compile just one file, not needing to run make if the project was built and not modified, and being able to set the compiler switches from within the GUI.

But it requires work to prepare this infrastructure, and I'm not that experienced with MSBuild, and definitely don't have the time.

So if anyone's interested...

This is very intriguing. I've been thinking about it since you posted. Just too busy irl.

What I would like to be able to do is have the full debugging features of VS2010 while modding the Civ .dll without a lot of hassle, i.e. as if it were code compiled in VS2010 and not VS2003.

I think Sid's boys should port the Civ code over for us

We'll send you a Christmas goose, I promise.

However, I am sitting down today to port over my ChazMod to BtS so maybe I will be sucked into the Civ modding vortex again.

Terkhen · Oct 18, 2011

I don't know what are the differences in debugging features between 2003 and 2010 because I'm only accustomed to 2010, but I have not noticed any differences on debugging possibilities between the code I usually work with on 2010 and the civilization dll. After some makefile changes (depending on the mod), I was able to get stacktraces with complete information just fine. I was even able to get minidumps working with the dll: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10938422

Of course, we are missing symbols for the game itself, but that could only be fixed by having the pdb file of the real game.

Asaf · Oct 23, 2011

@Chazcon - What debugging feature are you missing in the current workflow?

Vanya · Nov 1, 2011

hi asaf.

i wanna to merge the best mods. but some of them use the cvgamecore.dll

i get some error in the compiling

my os : win 7

the first 3 line of edted makedir :

TOOLKIT=C:\Development\Toolkit
PSDK=C:\Development\WindowsSDK
CIVINSTALL=C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword

below some screenshot of my dir organization

in the next post the output

Vanya · Nov 1, 2011

the output:

Spoiler :

1>Performing Makefile project actions
1> "C:\Development\Toolkit\bin\link.exe" /out:Release\CvGameCoreDLL.dll /INCREMENTAL:NO /OPT:REF /OPT:ICF /PDB:"Release\CvGameCoreDLL.pdb" /DLL /NOLOGO /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS /LARGEADDRESSAWARE /TLBID:1 /LIBPATH

ython24/libs /LIBPATH:boost-1.32.0/libs/ boost_python-vc71-mt-1_32.lib /LIBPATH:"C:\Development\Toolkit/lib" /LIBPATH:"C:\Development\WindowsSDK/Lib" /LIBPATH:"C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\CvGameCoreDLL\Boost-1.32.0/libs" /LIBPATH:"C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete\Beyond the Sword\CvGameCoreDLL\Python24/libs" winmm.lib user32.lib Release\CvArea.obj Release\CvArtFileMgr.obj Release\CvCity.obj Release\CvCityAI.obj Release\CvDeal.obj Release\CvDiploParameters.obj Release\CvDLLButtonPopup.obj Release\CvDLLEntity.obj Release\CvDLLPython.obj Release\CvDllPythonEvents.obj Release\CvDllTranslator.obj Release\CvDLLWidgetData.obj Release\CvEventReporter.obj Release\CvFractal.obj Release\CvGame.obj Release\CvGameAI.obj Release\CvGameCoreDLL.obj Release\CvGameCoreUtils.obj Release\CvGameInterface.obj Release\CvGameTextMgr.obj Release\CvGlobals.obj Release\CvHallOfFameInfo.obj Release\CvInfos.obj Release\CvInfoWater.obj Release\CvInitCore.obj Release\CvMap.obj Release\CvMapGenerator.obj Release\CvMessageControl.obj Release\CvMessageData.obj Release\CvPlayer.obj Release\CvPlayerAI.obj Release\CvPlot.obj Release\CvPlotGroup.obj Release\CvPopupInfo.obj Release\CvPopupReturn.obj Release\CvRandom.obj Release\CvReplayInfo.obj Release\CvReplayMessage.obj Release\CvSelectionGroup.obj Release\CvSelectionGroupAI.obj Release\CvStatistics.obj Release\CvStructs.obj Release\CvTalkingHeadMessage.obj Release\CvTeam.obj Release\CvTeamAI.obj Release\CvTextScreens.obj Release\CvUnit.obj Release\CvUnitAI.obj Release\CvXMLLoadUtility.obj Release\CvXMLLoadUtilityGet.obj Release\CvXMLLoadUtilityInit.obj Release\CvXMLLoadUtilitySet.obj Release\CyArea.obj Release\CyAreaInterface.obj Release\CyArgsList.obj Release\CyArtFileMgr.obj Release\CyArtFileMgrInterface.obj Release\CyCity.obj Release\CyCityInterface1.obj Release\CyDeal.obj Release\CyEnumsInterface.obj Release\CyGame.obj Release\CyGameCoreUtils.obj Release\CyGameCoreUtilsInterface.obj Release\CyGameInterface.obj Release\CyGameTextMgr.obj Release\CyGameTextMgrInterface.obj Release\CyGlobalContext.obj Release\CyGlobalContextInterface1.obj Release\CyGlobalContextInterface2.obj Release\CyGlobalContextInterface3.obj Release\CyGlobalContextInterface4.obj Release\CyHallOfFameInfo.obj Release\CyHallOfFameInterface.obj Release\CyInfoInterface1.obj Release\CyInfoInterface2.obj Release\CyInfoInterface3.obj Release\CyMap.obj Release\CyMapGenerator.obj Release\CyMapGeneratorInterface.obj

Vanya · Nov 1, 2011

Spoiler :

Vanya · Nov 1, 2011

Spoiler :

Chazcon · Nov 1, 2011

Vanya - ouch, please edit those posts and use spoiler tags, mate :eek:

Moderator Action: Added spoilers to 2 of the posts. The_J

Asaf - it turns out I am missing nothing, except a part of my brain, debugging is working great with the your tutorial and makefile

Vanya · Nov 2, 2011

thanks the J for the editing of my posts. i haven't seen the spoiler button in the interface. yesterday i was editing but my connecction jumped off.

@asaf please answer me! i didn't manage to compile the dll. :wallbash:

Asaf · Nov 2, 2011

Chazcon said:
Asaf - it turns out I am missing nothing, except a part of my brain, debugging is working great with the your tutorial and makefile

Good to hear :goodjob:

@Vanya - Can you attach your makefile, .vcproj and .sln files?

Vanya · Nov 2, 2011

sure. best i will upload my entire cvgamecore source directory.

it's a clean cvgamecoredll made merging your project archive and your cvgamecoredll source for BTS 3.19. it should once compiled create the original cvgamecore.dll.

i upload this to remove the error dued to the source file of the mod i try to merge. so we can better understand the nature of the issue.

thnks for your time.

p.s the cvgamecoredll directory is the only dir in mi mod dir when i compile this can be an issue?

p.p.s. i noticed the forum count the space of my uploads. how can i delete the upload to free space?

Asaf · Nov 2, 2011

Does the folder you attached give the same errors you posted above? Because it looks fine.

p.p.s. i noticed the forum count the space of my uploads. how can i delete the upload to free space?

In your account's page, at the bottom of the control panel to the left you have 'attachments'.

A simple guide to compiling the DLL

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