New Rule: No functions with less than X usages. about detekt HOT 6 CLOSED

This won't be easy to implement as detekt doesn't have the capability to scan the entire codebase and keep a context. Every rule are effectively an implementation of the visitor pattern implemented on the node of the AST.

We could extend detekt to start collecting those aggregated metrics (i.e. # of function usages vs definitions), but this is not in the roadmap

from detekt.

In my opinion, this feature might be better suited for a dedicated compiler plugin.
Technically it's possible to implement this with detekt. However, it will require more effort than just implementing a new rule. One needs to gather the information from BindingContext or from some other Kotlin compiler APIs.

from detekt.

Won’t implement for the reasons listed above

from detekt.

Thanks @cortinico . Is there an existing issue for keeping a context through an entire source set / module / code base? Or shall I make one?

from detekt.

I think the question is more for @detekt/maintainers if we ever want to implement such capability or not

from detekt.

Agree, detekt doesn't have the capabilities. Even if we implemented all the tracking and collation necessary for this, we would be missing out on usages from Java (and Scala/Groovy/Clojure/etc.).

You can however, write an Android Lint check for this, and use it in non-Android projects too via com.android.lint standalone plugin (see docs). That at least covers Java and .class-file usages. You can have a look at UnusedIds and UnusedResources for inspiration.

from detekt.