How to check if program was compiled with debug symbols?

Question

I'd like to trace some code in GIMP and therefore need GIMP with debug symbols enabled. I don't remember whether I have enabled them during compilation. How to check that without recompiling the program?

Answer 1

You can use file and objdump on Linux. In particular, you can look at whether file says "stripped" or "not stripped", and whether objdump --syms outputs anything useful (for me, it says "no symbols" for a regular build).