How can you find unused functions in Python code?

Question

So you've got some legacy code lying around in a fairly hefty project. How can you find and delete dead functions?

I've seen these two references: Find unused code and Tool to find unused functions in php project, but they seem specific to C# and PHP, respectively.

Is there a Python tool that'll help you find functions that aren't referenced anywhere else in the source code (notwithstanding reflection/etc.)?

Answer 1

In python you can find unused code by using dynamic or static code analyzers. Two examples for dynamic analyzers are coverage and figleaf. They have the drawback that you have to run all possible branches of your code in order to find unused parts, but they also have the advantage that you get very reliable results.

Alternatively, you can use static code analyzers that just look at your code, but don't actually run it. They run much faster, but due to python's dynamic nature the results are not 100% accurate so you might want to double-check them. Two tools that come to mind are pyflakes and vulture. They are complementary: Pyflakes finds unused imports and unused local variables while vulture finds unused functions, methods, classes, variables and attributes.

The tools are available at the Python Package Index http://pypi.python.org/pypi.

Answer 2

pylint can do what you want.

Answer 3

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but you might try using the coverage, figleaf or other similar modules, which record which parts of your source code is used as you actually run your scripts/application.

Answer 4

Because of the fairly strict way python code is presented, would it be that hard to build a list of functions based on a regex looking for def function_name(..) ?

And then search for each name and tot up how many times it features in the code. It wouldn't naturally take comments into account but as long as you're having a look at functions with less than two or three instances...

It's a bit Spartan but it sounds like a nice sleepy-weekend task =)

Answer 5

unless you know that your code uses reflection, as you said, I would go for a trivial grep. Do not underestimate the power of the asterisk in vim as well (performs a search of the word you have under your cursor in the file), albeit this is limited only to the file you are currently editing.

Another solution you could implement is to have a very good testsuite (seldomly happens, unfortunately) and then wrap the routine with a deprecation routine. if you get the deprecation output, it means that the routine was called, so it's still used somewhere. This works even for reflection behavior, but of course you can never be sure if you don't trigger the situation when your routine call is performed.