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Loading a Symbol Module

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If an application does not call the SymInitialize function with the fInvadeProcess parameter set to TRUE, it must load symbols for a module when they are required. To load a symbol module on demand, the application can call the SymLoadModuleEx function with a full path to a module name. When the module is loaded, the symbol handler will either load the symbols immediately or defer the load, depending on the options set using the SymSetOptions function.

The following code loads a symbol module. Note that it assumes you have initialized the symbol handler using the code in Initializing the Symbol Handler.

TCHAR  szImageName[MAX_PATH] = TEXT("foo.dll");
DWORD64 dwBaseAddr = 0;

if (SymLoadModuleEx(hProcess,    // target process 
                    NULL,        // handle to image - not used
                    szImageName, // name of image file
                    NULL,        // name of module - not required
                    dwBaseAddr,  // base address - not required
                    0,           // size of image - not required
                    NULL,        // MODLOAD_DATA used for special cases 
                    0))          // flags - not required
{
    // SymLoadModuleEx returned success
}
else
{
    // SymLoadModuleEx failed
    DWORD error = GetLastError();
    printf("SymLoadModuleEx returned error : %d\n", error);
}

Note that szImageName can be a path to any executable module that has debugging information (.exe, .dll, .drv, .sys, .scr, .cpl, .com). Also, dwBaseAddr is the base address of the symbol module to be loaded. If this value is 0, the symbol handler will obtain the base address from the specified symbol module.

Unloading a Symbol Module