From NASM to Visusal Studio source debugging

I think I have posted on this years ago but I never found a solution,
and now I'm back with this need...

I have a rather large NASM/Win32 project (an interpreter for a
LISP/Prolog flavoured language).

Presently, I build the stuff using NASM and Borland command
line tools, using a free editor (Context by Eden Kirin) as IDE.
When needed, I debug the assembler source with the old Borland
Turbo Debugger.

I really need to go Visual Studio. I need source level assembler
debugging in Visual Studio 2005, and linking with Visual C++.
I'll do what it takes to get there.

The reason I need the transition is, I need to involve my collegues
in experiments with interfacing with VC code. Visual Studio is
the thing they use. Period. They will get confused and find they
have lots of other things to do if I confront them with Borland
tools. Besides, I have a specific need for experimenting with
..NET interfacing via VC.

What is the simplest/the best way to get it working?

I know NASM (and YASM) can produce the required obj
format (-f win32) but as far as I can tell neither assembler
will deliver debug info with this format.

(Or am I wrong? Is the debug information required for
source level debugging present in the format per se? I
don't think so...)

If there is no other way, I will translate the project to MASM.
I will probably use the NASM preprocessor (the project depends
heavily on nontrivial NASM macros) and then translate the
expanded code to MASM before assembling it.

Does a suitable NASM -> MASM translator exist? (Is it available
for little or no charge?) (If not, I think I can manage to write one; it
needs only cover the expanded NASM stuff I'm actually using.)

Will it be possible to trick VS/MASM into using the line numbers
as of before the NASM preprocessing - so that I can step through
the NASM code, set breakpoints in it etc. in a VS code pane?

(I would prefer to keep the assembler code base in NASM since
I might some day try to make it work with Linux or BSD.)

Ole Nielsby/Remove the slow slimy animal from my reply address


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