What are the *.symbols file in the ipa?

Question

shino996 OP

Created Mar ’20

Replies 3

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Views 4.7k

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When unzipped an ipa file, I found some *.symbols files in the ./Symbols folder:

Symbols
├── 0622D177-3DDB-317B-B4C7-08BEC26BEB0D.symbols
├── 2E37B62A-0764-3C92-876E-A83744355E71.symbols
├── 39208D90-C91E-3F4F-8162-C19B4E4037CE.symbols
├── 396D29A9-8DCA-3A77-8B64-F2B57030D5DA.symbols
├── 48A24338-2A05-39FA-B767-75162FEF155E.symbols
├── 522D51C3-6B15-3D61-B6EF-2EFB0D95776D.symbols
├── 5CFF80E9-E21B-3329-B55C-E6362DAA9200.symbols
└── 83E736C8-05C6-36D9-970C-E2B7328DF09A.symbols

It seems the file name of the *.symbols files are the same as the dsym file. What are the symbols files? And what is the difference between *.symbols files and dsym?

Answered by DTS Engineer in 409680022

.symbols files are generated when you submit machine code instead of bitcode to the App Store. They are used as part of the mechanism used to deliver symbolicated crash reports to your Xcode Organizer. They are lighter weight than the complete .dSYM file, which contains far more debugging info.

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Answer 1

KMT OP

Mar ’20

See this SO thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28941656/what-are-debug-symbols-in-xcode/28941719

1

Answer 2

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Mar ’20

Accepted Answer

.symbols files are generated when you submit machine code instead of bitcode to the App Store. They are used as part of the mechanism used to deliver symbolicated crash reports to your Xcode Organizer. They are lighter weight than the complete .dSYM file, which contains far more debugging info.

1

Answer 3

pablobart OP

Oct ’21

There's no information anywhere about this ".symbols" files and the information that they contain. Can they be used to symbolicate a crash (if DSYMs are not available)? what format do these files have?

Using "strings" over a ".symbols" file, I can see that they do contain symbol names, but the file is not supported by any of the usual tools (dwarfdump, otool...)

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