How to Find Unreachable Functions With Deadcode

Functions that are part of your project’s source code but can never be reached in any execution are called “dead code”, and they exert a drag on codebase maintenance efforts.

Functions that are part of your project’s source code but can never be reached in any execution are called “dead code”, and they exert a drag on codebase maintenance efforts. Today, we’re pleased to share a tool named deadcode to help you identify them.

$ go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/deadcode@latest
$ deadcode -help
The deadcode command reports unreachable functions in Go programs.

Usage: deadcode [flags] package...

Example

Over the last year or so, we’ve been making a lot of changes to the structure of gopls, the language server for Go that powers VS Code and other editors. A typical change might rewrite some existing function, taking care to ensure ...