td_utils.txt

tasm source document descript

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                           TURBO DEBUGGER
                         UTILITIES REFERENCE

This file contains information about the following Turbo Debugger utilities:

1. TDSTRIP and TDSTRP32
2. TDMEM
3. TDWINI
4. TDRF

For convenience, when searching for information about a particular utility,
you can search for the name of the utility followed by a colon (i.e. TDMEM:).
Doing so will take you directly to the header for the utility specified.

For a list of all the command-line options available for TDSTRIP.EXE and
TDSTRP32, just type the program  name and press Enter. For example,
to see the command-line options for TDSTRIP.EXE, you enter

   TDSTRIP

For a list of all the command-line options available for TDMEM.EXE,
enter the program name followed by -?.

   TDMEM -?


1. TDSTRIP: The symbol table stripping utility
==============================================
TDSTRIP.EXE (and TDSTRP32, the 32-bit version of TDSTRIP) 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. TDSTRIP can also remove
debugging information from an .OBJ file:

   TDSTRIP PROGRAM.OBJ

You can also use TDSTRIP 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. TDSTRIP 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.


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

   TDSTRIP [-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 TDSTRIP 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 TDSTRIP command lines. The following command
removes the symbol table from MYPROG.EXE:

   TDSTRIP MYPROG

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

   TDSTRIP -s MYPROG.OLD

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

   TDSTRIP MYPROG MYPROG.NEW

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

   TDSTRIP -s MYPROG MYSYMS


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

Can't create file: ___
  TDSTRIP 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: ___
  TDSTRIP 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
  TDSTRIP 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 TDSTRIP.

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
  TDSTRIP.

Invalid command-line option: ___
  You've given an invalid command-line option when starting TDSTRIP
  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 TDSTRIP to load and
  process the .EXE file. This only happens in extreme circumstances
  (TDSTRIP has very modest memory requirements). Try rebooting your 
  system and running TDSTRIP 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 TDSTRIP 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 TDSTRIP, 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 TDSTRIP without giving it the name of an .EXE program
  file whose symbol table you want to strip.


2. TDMEM: The memory display utility
====================================
TDMEM displays the current availability of your computer's memory.
This includes Expanded or Extended memory, if it exists, and conventional
memory.  This is useful when debugging TSR and device driver programs.
You can use the File|Table relocate option in Turbo Debugger to specify
a base segment address for the current symbol table that is shown when
running TDMEM.


3. TDWINI: The video DLL setup utility
======================================
TDWINI helps you select and configure the video DLL that you use with TDW.
For complete instructions on this utility, see the online help (F1)
provided with the utility.


4. TDRF: Utility for remote file commands and file transfer
===========================================================
The remote file transfer utility (TDRF) works in conjunction with TDREMOTE
or WREMOTE running on another system.  (For more information on TDREMOTE and
WREMOTE, see the "Remote Debugging" appendix in the "Turbo Debugger User's 
Guide"). With TDRF you can perform most DOS file maintenance operations on 
the remote system. You can

  o copy files to the remote system
  o copy files from the remote system
  o make directories
  o remove directories
  o display directories
  o change directories
  o rename files
  o delete files

Once you have started TDREMOTE or WREMOTE on the remote system, you can
use TDRF at any time. You can start it directly from the DOS prompt, or
you can access DOS from inside Turbo Debugger by using the File|DOS
Shell command, then start TDRF (even while debugging a program on the
remote system). This second method is useful if you've forgotten to put
some files on the remote system that are required by the program you're
debugging.

When describing TDRF in the following sections, we refer to the system
you're typing at as the "local system" and any files there as "local
files," and the other system connected by a serial cable or network as
the "remote system" and any files there as "remote files."


Starting TDRF from the DOS command line
---------------------------------------
The general form of the command line for TDRF is

   TDRF [<options>] <command> [<arguments>]

The <options> control whether the link is network or serial, and if it's
serial, the speed of the remote link and which port it runs on. The
options are described in more detail in the next section.

<command> indicates the operation you want to perform. You can type the
command either as a DOS command--like COPY, DEL, MD, and so on--or as
a single-letter abbreviation.

<arguments> are any arguments to the command.

For example, to get a directory display of all files starting with ABC
in the current directory on the remote system, you could type:

   TDRF DIR ABC*

All the commands are described fully after the next section.


TDRF command-line options
-------------------------
You must start an option with either a hyphen (-) or a slash (/).
The following list shows the command-line options for TDRF:

-rn<L>;<R>  Sets the link to network, the local name to <L>, and the remote
            name to <R>.

  If you link over the network, the name of the local machine defaults to
  "LOCAL" and the remote machine to "REMOTE". You can set your own name for
  the machines by entering a name up to 16 characters long for either the
  local machine, the remote machine, or both.
 
  You must be running TDREMOTE or WREMOTE with the -rn option on the remote
  machine with the local machine name set to the same name as you've indicated
  in the TDRF command.

-rsN        Sets the type of remote link to serial and the speed of the link.

  The -rs option sets the speed at which the remote serial link operates.
  You must make sure you use the same speed with TDRF that you specified
  when you started TDREMOTE or WREMOTE on the remote system. N can be 1, 2,
  3, or 4, where 1 signifies a speed of 9600 baud, 2 signifies 19,200 baud,
  3 signifies 38,400 baud, and 4 signifies 115,000 baud.

  In other words, the higher the number, the faster the data transfer
  rate across the serial link. Normally, TDRF defaults to -rs4 (the highest