How to decompile pdb to get C# source code?

c# .net logging pdb-files decompiler
Bero picture Bero · Jul 4, 2011 · Viewed 12.3k times · Source

My scenario: I want to write in log file part of code where exception has happened (for example 5 lines before and 5 lines after line where exception happened - or at least all the code of that method).

My idea is to decompile pdb file in C# code and from that decompiled file find a method that went in exception in catch block.

Pbd file exists and my app is build as debug version. I know that there are tools that allows through its GUI (for example Reflector) to do decompiling but I want to have that functionality from my code.

How to do it?

Answer

Ben Voigt picture Ben Voigt · Jul 4, 2011

The PDB contains the mapping between MSIL and source filename / line number. This is most useful when you can go back and look at the original source files, because decompilation typically doesn't preserve line numbers (although it could if it also used the PDB file). It certainly doesn't recover the original code exactly as written, although with symbol names (also stored in the PDB) it often comes close.

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