debug symbol size

[Alex Hornby]

I've installed the 20001127 snapshot, and I have noticed that a C++
"hello world" program with -g generates .text of 632 bytes and a
.stabstr of 144017 bytes. If I use -ggdb the symbols reduce to around
120000 bytes.

This seems like a lot of debug for 632 bytes of text. Is this a
feature of debug symbols that cannot be avoided?

More details are available in:
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-bugs/2000-12/msg00104.html

TIA
Alex.