Can findbugs detect unused public methods

Question

Is it possible to detect unused methods in a source tree using FindBugs? I see some posts on SO where users are claiming to do that, some others asking how to do this in FB

Answer 1

The best approach (to me) to find candidates for unused methods is to use coverage tools, like emma.

Instrument you application, use it excessivly and examine the emma logs - methods that not have been used during the session may be unused and you can use your favourite IDE (eclipse, ...) to examine the unvisited methods call hierarchies.

I doubt, that find bugs or any other code analyser can really detect unused methods, because methods may be

• called by other libraries (for all non-private methods)
• called remotely
• invoked through reflection API (even private methods, technically spoken)