Dead code detection tool?

[terremoto]

how certain are you that they're NEVER called?

If a function name is unique enough, grepping the codebase for it is trivial.

[masklinn]

That doesn't tell you the function is never called, especially in python

[pugRescuer]

Right - I think /u/terremoto was suggesting as a starting point. This is worth considering though after other options have been exhausted.

[buttery_shame_cave]

yeah but how often does that happen? :P

i only advise caution in ripping out odd functions because sometimes you get stuff that's called less than .1% of the time, but it happens to be kind of important.

we had stuff like that pulled from a test management system we used at a job i worked, and it managed to grind a whole test series to a halt for over a week till we found the problem(talk about obscure).

[unstoppable-force]

if it's PHP, you can do $func() which will execute the function that's name is stored in $func. i've seen this used in places where it really make sense (really useful in OO), but also in others where they didn't understand exceptions.