gamedevlists-general

[GD-General] remove unused functions

[Corrinne Y. <cor...@sp...>]

The game engine and game code base has gotten very very big. And it is
about time to clean things up and improve its structure and
documentation.

One thing I would like to do to it is to start removing un-used
functions. I tried to use MSDev to remove un-referenced functions as a
start but didn't find any. It turns out quite a few of the "un-used"
functions are "referenced" (and thus can't be that easily automatically
determined) but I know from how the game and engine code is supposed to
run that they won't ever be called.

They are not exactly unreachable code either, so doing the unreachable
code thing also doesn't work.

I truly "dread" :D the idea to have to manually step through all the
code and manually cull out every single un-used function by hand (it is
a lot of code to wade through!). I wonder what tools exist inside of
MSDev (or simple easy to use small external tools) that can help me in
my highly un fun task of cleaning up my code base, specifically in the
task of removing "un-used" functions.

Thank you for your experience in this task, and your suggestions.

RE: [GD-General] remove unused functions

[Stefan B. <ste...@te...>]

> I truly "dread" :D the idea to have to manually step through all the
> code and manually cull out every single un-used function by hand (it =
is
> a lot of code to wade through!). I wonder what tools exist inside of
> MSDev (or simple easy to use small external tools) that can help me in
> my highly un fun task of cleaning up my code base, specifically in the
> task of removing "un-used" functions.

   There are coverage analysis tools that you could use to do this. =
Normally
these tools are used in automated testing, to verify that all code paths =
are
exercised by the test cases. We have some Rational PurifyPlus licenses =
and
as part of their package they bundle Quantify and PureCoverage. I'm sure
there are lots of other packages available but I have no idea what's the
best solution.=20

   Anyway, just Google for "code coverage analysis" or something like =
that
and you should get plenty of hits.

Cheers,
Stef! :)
--
Stefan Boberg, R&D Manager - Team17 Software Ltd.
bo...@te...

Re: [GD-General] remove unused functions

[Neil S. <ne...@r0...>]

> One thing I would like to do to it is to start removing un-used
> functions. I tried to use MSDev to remove un-referenced functions as a
> start but didn't find any. It turns out quite a few of the "un-used"
> functions are "referenced" (and thus can't be that easily automatically
> determined) but I know from how the game and engine code is supposed to
> run that they won't ever be called.
>
> They are not exactly unreachable code either, so doing the unreachable
> code thing also doesn't work.

What about using a code coverage tool, like Compuware's DevPartner or
something similar? They are really designed to show what code is (and isn't)
covered by unit tests, but they might be able to work with an entire run of
your code. If not, you could create some unit tests for each of your
components, such as rendering, AI, etc., and then run them through such a
tool.

- Neil.

RE: [GD-General] remove unused functions

[Corrinne Y. <cor...@sp...>]

Thank you for all these suggestions. Quite a few of them sound do-able.

Using a formal analysis tool would had been good if it were done from
the beginning, but at this point I am probably stuck with several of the
global "#define" search and replace and text dump suggestions, as I am
trying to do this with as little new code writing, and as little
"learning how to use a new tool" as possible.

I may consider looking at code analysis tools when I start a new project
(or using the existing engine to start a new project, or let other
companies or teams use the existing engine with a new project) to see if
it is a lot of work and effort (or high learning curve). I wish I had
looked more into "big code project type tools" earlier on; kept
convincing myself my project probably would be "small" and it does turn
into one of those "software project management size" type of code base;
it got even bigger than source code projects for when I worked for other
companies and teams. Engines and games must have gotten highly complex
in the last year or so and had increased greatly in function complexity.
Games and engines after this one probably would become so huge that
"formal software documentation and structuring" would become almost a
necessity for the next round. (Days of winging it un-documented appear
to be diminishing. :) )

Again, thank you for all the pointers. They have all been very helpful.

RE: [GD-General] remove unused functions

[Jamie F. <ja...@qu...>]

have you tried a profiler? take a profiler which will instrument the
functions for you, then use the counts to find which functions are never
really used?

Jamie


-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
Corrinne Yu
Sent: 19 May 2003 19:58
To: gam...@li...
Subject: [GD-General] remove unused functions


The game engine and game code base has gotten very very big. And it is
about time to clean things up and improve its structure and
documentation.

One thing I would like to do to it is to start removing un-used
functions. I tried to use MSDev to remove un-referenced functions as a
start but didn't find any. It turns out quite a few of the "un-used"
functions are "referenced" (and thus can't be that easily automatically
determined) but I know from how the game and engine code is supposed to
run that they won't ever be called.

They are not exactly unreachable code either, so doing the unreachable
code thing also doesn't work.

I truly "dread" :D the idea to have to manually step through all the
code and manually cull out every single un-used function by hand (it is
a lot of code to wade through!). I wonder what tools exist inside of
MSDev (or simple easy to use small external tools) that can help me in
my highly un fun task of cleaning up my code base, specifically in the
task of removing "un-used" functions.

Thank you for your experience in this task, and your suggestions.



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RE: [GD-General] remove unused functions

[Laurent G. <lg...@pa...>]

If you use MSVC 7, had you try to set Property|C/C++|Optimization|Global
Optimizations to Yes ? Look at LTCG in the documentation... Even if it's
much more an optimization option, it's actually remove all unused function
(even in our case)...

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : gam...@li...
> [mailto:gam...@li...]De la part de
> Corrinne Yu
> Envoye : lundi 19 mai 2003 20:58
> A : gam...@li...
> Objet : [GD-General] remove unused functions
>
>
> The game engine and game code base has gotten very very big. And it is
> about time to clean things up and improve its structure and
> documentation.
>
> One thing I would like to do to it is to start removing un-used
> functions. I tried to use MSDev to remove un-referenced functions as a
> start but didn't find any. It turns out quite a few of the "un-used"
> functions are "referenced" (and thus can't be that easily
> automatically
> determined) but I know from how the game and engine code is
> supposed to
> run that they won't ever be called.
>
> They are not exactly unreachable code either, so doing the unreachable
> code thing also doesn't work.
>
> I truly "dread" :D the idea to have to manually step through all the
> code and manually cull out every single un-used function by
> hand (it is
> a lot of code to wade through!). I wonder what tools exist inside of
> MSDev (or simple easy to use small external tools) that can help me in
> my highly un fun task of cleaning up my code base, specifically in the
> task of removing "un-used" functions.
>
> Thank you for your experience in this task, and your suggestions.
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: ObjectStore.
> If flattening out C++ or Java code to make your application fit in a
> relational database is painful, don't do it! Check out ObjectStore.
> Now part of Progress Software. http://www.objectstore.net/sourceforge
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