How to list definitions exported by Visual C++ library file

On Windows, library files (.lib) are commonly produced by compilation using the Visual C++ compiler. Sometimes, you may want to know which library file exports the definition of a certain function or global variable.

The definitions exported by a library file can be listed by using the dumpbin tool. This ships with Visual Studio and can be invoked by opening the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio.

To list the symbols exported by a library file use:

C:\> dumpbin /exports foo.lib

Note that C function definitions will have an underscore as prefix. But, C++ definitions will be much more mangled. However, if you know the function name or even a substring of it, you could investigate using the output of this program.

Tried with: Visual Studio 2012 and Windows 7 x64