I'm looking for a java lint tool that will point out <b>public</b> methods that
are unused within my codebase. All of the tools I've reviewed to date
have only detected unused private methods. Does such a tool exist?
If so, can you point me in the right direction?
I don't think such a tool can exist, because the tool wouldn't know whether your writing an API or an end user application.
Also, in any program you might end up with public methods that do nothing, but need to be there to complete an interface implementation.
Presumably, the goal with finding the unused public methods is to remove them and to improve performance somehow. I don't think this is a worthwhile exercise as the compiler does a pretty good job of this optimisation already.
ProGuard can list (and remove) unused classes, fields, and methods in a (compiled) codebase. You just have to specify all entry points, like the "main" method of your application. ProGuard is also an optimizer and an obfuscator. It is freely available under the GPL: http://proguard.sourceforge.net/
The site also contains a list of alternative shrinking/compacting tools, which may be able to do what you need.
Eric (author of ProGuard).
