Finding dead code in Delphi is usually real simple: just compile and then scan for routines missing their blue dots. The smart linker’s very good about tracking them down, most of the time.
Problem is, this doesn’t work for event handlers because they’re published methods, which (theoretically) could be invoked via RTTI somehow, even though this almost never happens in actual practice.
I’m trying to clean up a large VCL form unit that’s been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated various times throughout its history. It would sure be nice if I had some way to find event handlers that aren’t actually referenced by the form’s DFM and delete them. Is there any easy way to do this? A plug-in IDE Expert, for example?
I dont think this is possible from an automatic point of view. event handlers are activated when a particular event occurs inside an object. That the even is not triggered in a given run doesnt mean that there isnt an execution pathway to lead to it.
also you can assign handlers dynamically at runtime so whats used in one situation is not garuanteed.
e.g.
button.onclick := DefaultClickHandler;
button.onClick := SpecialClickHandler;
Assuming that the click handlers match the onclick event signature, but you wouldnt get a compile if the signature was incorrect.
however, you can probably find all the abandoned handlers by looking for all the methods that find have a (Sender: TObject) method signature and comparing that his of methods to those in the .dfm (make sure you save it as text if you are working with an older version of delphi), antyhing not wired up automatically would be suspect in my book.
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if you dont want to go down the cygwin path, you can load the src and dfm into two TStirngLists and rip out the name/idents from each and generate a list with a couple of loops and some string manipulations. my guess is about 20 minutes of work to get something you can live with .