Find unused classes in a Java Eclipse project
I have a large Eclipse project in which there exist several classes which, although they ceased to be used anywhere, were never marked @Deprecated.
How can I easily find all of these?
Solution 1:
I also like to use UCDetector:
UCDetector (Unecessary Code Detector) is a Open Source eclipse PlugIn Tool to find unecessary (dead) public java code. It also tries to make code final, protected or private.
Bonus: it can also find cyclic dependencies between classes
(also a number of other tools -- including Findbugs -- knows how do do that too)
Caveat: Cid mentions in the comments:
UCDetector shall not work if there are interface implementations which will be known only at runtime.
It incorrectly marks the implementation classes as unused.
Update 2017: static code analysis has evolved quite a bit in 8 years.
Using SonarLint for Eclipse, you can use the the latest SonarJava 4.6 plugin to analyze your code.
It will find dead code.
Solution 2:
ProGuard can be used to print a report of unused classes/methods. It's a pain to supply all the dependent jars to it, though.
These options list unused classes, fields, and methods in the application mypackage.MyApplication:
-injars in.jar
-libraryjars <java.home>/lib/rt.jar
-dontoptimize
-dontobfuscate
-dontpreverify
-printusage
-keep public class mypackage.MyApplication {
public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
}