Re: Identify unused methods??

From:

"Daniel Pitts" <googlegroupie@coloraura.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

20 Dec 2006 11:45:25 -0800

Message-ID:

<1166643925.824542.106900@73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com>

alejandrina wrote:

Daniel Pitts wrote:

alejandrina wrote:

HI all,

We would like to use a tool to spot methods in oour packages that are
not being used. We have the entire source set under Eclipse, so a
plugin would be best. We do not want anything too complex or a graph,
or statistics, just a simple report that indicates what methods are not
used. Does anyone know of such a thing?

I did look in the usual places; I found code formatters, style
analyzers, code coverage tools...but no tool that does what I've
outlined.

Thanks,

Alejandrina

I know in Idea you can do a source analysis, and set the options to
report unused methods.

What you should really do, however, is code coverage. That will tell
you everything that isn't used (including methods and branches).

I thought code coverage had to do with run-time behavior (ie what paths
are not taken); what I wanted was static analysis. Am I wrong?

Please don't top post....

You are right, there is a difference between static analysis and
run-time behavior. I was suggesting code-coverage because it can give
you a much more complete picture of whats not being used. This, of
course, assumes that you have tests for all of your use cases. (unit
tests or otherwise), and that you don't have tests for situations that
AREN'T in your use cases.

In any case, there are plenty of static analysis tools out there that
will help find unused members. I already mentioned that stock IntelliJ
IDEA can do this. I would be surprised if there wasn't something for
Eclipse that could also.

Hope this helps,

Daniel.