Overview

The tool assumes that .mli files are compiled with -keep-locs and .ml files with -bin-annot. Exported values are collected by reading .cmi or .cmt files (depending on the existence of an explicit .mli interface). References to such values are collected by reading typed trees from .cmt files

This tool scans a compiled OCaml project and reports various warnings about suspicious code:

• Exported values never used. (The declaration can be dropped from the interface, and then from the implementation if there is no internal use -- which will be reported by standard OCaml warnings).
• Types' fields and constructors never used. (Can be dropped from the type)
• Class fields never used. (Can be dropped from the signature)
• Optional arguments for which either all call sites or none of them provide a value (other than None). (The argument can be made mandatory or dropped.)
• Other stylistic issues: patterns matching a value of type unit which are not () (typically, _ or a variable); let-binding to unit let () = ... in ... (it's usually better to use sequencing); let-binding of the form let x = ... in x (the binding is useless); optional argument in an argument's type: val f: ... -> (... -> ?_:_ -> ...) -> ...

Requirements

• Currently tested and working on OCaml 5.2

Install

OPAM

opam install dead_code_analyzer

Manual

1. Download the sources.
2. Build by running make
3. Run the dead_code_analyzer located in _build/install/default/bin/

Usage

dead_code_analyzer <options> <path>

The given paths can be files and directories. For more information about the usage, use the -help option.

Testing

To run the tests use make check. For each subset of the tests a file <subset>.out is generated, containg the output of the execution on it.

To run a subset of the tests call make -C check <subset>.

Contribute

You are welcome to clone this repository and send us back pull requests.

Read CONTRIBUTING.md at the root of this directory for more informations on how to contribute.

Status

The project is used internally at LexiFi.

There has been no official release yet.

Limitations

Tracking the optional arguments uses may consume a lot of memory. Tracking the methods uses may consume a lot of memory.

Copyright

Source code is distributed under the conditions stated in file License

Contact

This project was initiated by LexiFi (http://www.lexifi.com) and is part of the SecurOCaml project.

Contact: alain.frisch@lexifi.com