Given a program with only if/else statements is it then possible to decide which variables that occur but never read?
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Given a program with only if/else statements is it then possible to decide which variables that occur but never read?
Yes. Given a program with only if/else statements [assuming no branches backwards and loops], there is a finite number of paths in the program.
You can check all of them, check which conditions must be met in order to get to each path, and find contradictions [un accessable paths], and this way to find which variables are never used.
This can be implemented as a simpler version of Hoare logic, which is pretty simple to automatize, without loops. [with loops it is of course impossible to automatize it]