Vulture - Find dead code

Vulture finds unused code in Python programs. This is useful for cleaning up and finding errors in large code bases. If you run Vulture on both your library and test suite you can find untested code.

Due to Python's dynamic nature, static code analyzers like Vulture are likely to miss some dead code. Also, code that is only called implicitly may be reported as unused. Nonetheless, Vulture can be a very helpful tool for higher code quality.

Features

• fast: static code analysis
• lightweight: only one module
• tested: tests itself and has complete test coverage
• complements pyflakes and has the same output syntax
• sorts unused classes and functions by size with --sort-by-size
• supports Python 2.6, 2.7 and 3.x

Installation

$ pip install vulture  # from PyPI
$ pip install .        # from cloned repo

Usage

$ vulture myscript.py  # or
$ python3 -m vulture myscript.py
$ vulture myscript.py mypackage1/ mypackage2/
$ vulture myscript.py mywhitelist.py

The provided arguments may be Python files or directories. For each directory Vulture analyzes all contained *.py files.

After you have found and deleted dead code, run Vulture again, because it may discover more dead code.

Handling false positives

You can add used code that is reported as unused to a Python module and add it to the list of scanned paths. We collect whitelists for common Python modules and packages in vulture/whitelists/ (pull requests are welcome). If you want to ignore a whole file or directory, use the --exclude parameter (e.g., -exclude *settings.py,docs/).

Marking unused variables

There are situations where you can't just remove unused variables, e.g., in tuple assignments or function signatures. Vulture will ignore these variables if they start with an underscore (e.g., _x, y = get_pos()).

How does it work?

Vulture uses the ast module to build abstract syntax trees for all given files. While traversing all syntax trees it records the names of defined and used objects. Afterwards, it reports the objects which have been defined, but not used. This analysis ignores scopes and focuses only on object names.

Sort by size

When using the --sort-by-size option, Vulture sorts unused classes and functions by their lines of code. This helps developers prioritize where to look for dead code first.

Similar programs

• Vulture can be used together with pyflakes
• The coverage module can find unused code more reliably, but requires all branches of the code to actually be run.

Participate

Please visit https://github.com/jendrikseipp/vulture to report any issues or to make pull requests.

• Changelog: NEWS.rst
• Roadmap: TODO.rst