How can you find unused functions in Python code?

python refactoring dead-code
Brian M. Hunt picture Brian M. Hunt · Mar 28, 2009 · Viewed 17.1k times · Source

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

Jendrik picture Jendrik · Mar 22, 2012

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 may contain false positives. Two tools in this category are pyflakes and vulture. Pyflakes finds unused imports and unused local variables. Vulture finds all kinds of unused and unreachable code. (Full disclosure: I'm the maintainer of Vulture.)

The tools are available in the Python Package Index https://pypi.org/.

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