TDSTRP32 Help

1. TDSTRP32: The symbol table stripping utility
==============================================
TDSTRP32.EXE lets you remove the symbol table from an executable program.
This is a faster way of removing the symbol table than recompiling and
relinking your program without symbolic debug information. TDSTRP32 can
also remove debugging information from an .OBJ file:

   TDSTRP32 PROGRAM.OBJ

You can also use TDSTRP32 to remove the symbol table and put it in
a separate file. This is useful when you want to convert the .EXE
format program to a .COM file and still retain the debugging symbol
table. TDSTRP32 puts the symbol table in a file with the extension
.TDS. Turbo Debugger looks for this file when it loads a program to
debug that doesn't have a symbol table.


TDSTRP32 command-line options
----------------------------
The general form of the DOS command line used to start TDSTRP32 is:

   TDSTRP32 [-s] [-c] <exename> [<outputname>]

If you don't specify the -s option, the symbol table is removed from
the .EXE file <exename>. If you specify an <outputname>, the original
.EXE file is left unchanged and a version with no symbol table is created
as <outputname>.

If you do specify the -s option, the symbol table will be put in a
file with the same name as <exename> but with the extension .TDS. If you
specify an output file, the symbol table will be put in <outputname>.

If you specify the -c option, the input .EXE file is converted into a
.COM file. If you use -c in conjunction with -s, you can convert an
.EXE file with symbols into a .COM file with a separate .TDS symbol
file. This lets you debug .COM files with Turbo Debugger while
retaining full debugging information.

You can only convert certain .EXE files into .COM files. The same
restrictions apply to the -c option of TDSTRP32 as to the /t option of
TLINK: Your program must start at location 100 hex, and it can't
contain any segment fixups.

The default extension for <exename> is .EXE. If you add an extension,
it overrides the default.

There are two default extensions for <outputname>,

o .TDS when you use the -s command-line switch
o .EXE when you don't use the -s command-line switch

If you add an extension, it overrides the defaults.

Here are some sample TDSTRP32 command lines. The following command
removes the symbol table from MYPROG.EXE:

   TDSTRP32 MYPROG

The following command removes the symbol table from MYPROG.OLD
and places it in MYPROG.TDS:

   TDSTRP32 -s MYPROG.OLD

The following command leaves MYPROG.EXE unchanged but creates another
copy of it named MYPROG.NEW without a symbol table:

   TDSTRP32 MYPROG MYPROG.NEW

The following command removes the symbol table from MYPROG.EXE and
places it in MYSYMS.TDS:

   TDSTRP32 -s MYPROG MYSYMS


TDSTRP32 error messages
----------------------
Following is a list of TDSTRP32 error messages:

Can't create file: ___
  TDSTRP32 couldn't create the output symbol or .EXE file. Either there
  is no more room on your disk, or you specified an invalid output file
  name.

Can't open file: ___
  TDSTRP32 could not locate the .EXE file from which you want to remove the
  symbol table.

Error reading from input exe file
  An error occurred during reading from the input executable program
  file. Your disk may be unreadable. Try the operation again.

Error writing to output file: ___; disk may be full
  TDSTRP32 couldn't write to the output symbol or executable file. This
  usually happens when there is no more room on your disk. You will have
  to delete some files to make room for the file created by TDSTRP32.

Input file is not an .exe file
  You've specified an input file name that isn't a valid executable
  program. You can strip symbols only from .EXE programs because these
  are the only ones that TLINK can put a symbol table in. Programs in
  .COM file format don't have symbol tables and can't be processed by
  TDSTRP32.

Invalid command-line option: ___
  You've given an invalid command-line option when starting TDSTRP32
  from the DOS command line.

Invalid exe file format
  The input file appears to be an .EXE format program file, but
  something is wrong with it. You should relink the program with TLINK.

Not enough memory
  Your system doesn't have enough free memory for TDSTRP32 to load and
  process the .EXE file. This only happens in extreme circumstances
  (TDSTRP32 has very modest memory requirements). Try rebooting your 
  system and running TDSTRP32 again. You might have previously run a
  program that allocated some memory that won't be freed until you reboot.

Program does not have a symbol table
  You've specified an input file that's a valid .EXE file, but it
  doesn't have a symbol table.

Program does not have a valid symbol table
  The symbol table at the end of the .EXE file isn't a valid TLINK
  symbol table. This can happen if you try to use TDSTRP32 on a program
  created by a linker other than TLINK. Relink the program with TLINK.

Too many arguments
  You can supply a maximum of two arguments to TDSTRP32, the first being
  the name of the executable program, and the second being the name of
  the output file for symbols or the executable program.

You must supply an exe file name
  You've started TDSTRP32 without giving it the name of an .EXE program
  file whose symbol table you want to strip.