Re: [PATCH] meson.build: Add --enable-use-pdb option

>> On 18. Mar 2026, at 20:18, Steve Aarnio <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> This option will (attempt to) modify the QEMU compile and link flags to
>> emit PDB symbol files rather than the standard (DWARF?) symbol output
>> from gcc/clang.
>>
>> This enables using native Windows debug tools (Windbg/Visual Studio) for
>> debugging QEMU.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Steve Aarnio <[email protected]>
>
>
> Reviewed-by: Mohamed Mediouni <[email protected]>
>
> Already used something like this, it makes Windows debugging substantially easier.

@Mohamed Mediouni<mailto:[email protected]>, thank you for the quick review. First, thank you for your WHPX on AARCH64 Windows - no more waiting 20 minutes for the guest to boot, which is amazing. Second, regarding this patch, are there other flags that you used for your work that I have missed here? I've had reasonable success with these, just wondering if there's something that I may have missed.

>> ---
>>  meson.build       | 5 +++++
>> meson_options.txt | 2 ++
>>  2 files changed, 7 insertions(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
>> index d7c4095b39..d27581e0c2 100644
>> --- a/meson.build
>> +++ b/meson.build
>> @@ -692,6 +692,11 @@ endif
>>   qemu_common_flags += hardening_flags
>>  +if get_option('debug') and get_option('use_pdb')
>> +  qemu_common_flags += cc.get_supported_arguments('-g','-gcodeview','-gcolumn-info','-fno-omit-frame-pointer')
>> +  qemu_ldflags += cc.get_supported_link_arguments('-g','-Wl,--pdb=')
>> +endif
>> +
>>  # Collect warning flags we want to set, sorted alphabetically
>>  warn_flags = [
>>    # First enable interesting warnings
>> diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
>> index 31d5916cfc..b1f3250d5c 100644
>> --- a/meson_options.txt
>> +++ b/meson_options.txt
>> @@ -372,6 +372,8 @@ option('debug_stack_usage', type: 'boolean', value: false,
>>         description: 'measure coroutine stack usage')
>>  option('qom_cast_debug', type: 'boolean', value: true,
>>         description: 'cast debugging support')
>> +option('use_pdb', type: 'boolean', value: false,
>> +       description: 'use pdb symbol format on debug windows builds')
>>  option('slirp_smbd', type : 'feature', value : 'auto',
>>         description: 'use smbd (at path --smbd=*) in slirp networking')
>>  --
>> 2.53.0