private methods that are never executed are dead code: unnecessary, inoperative code that should be removed. Cleaning out dead code
decreases the size of the maintained codebase, making it easier to understand the program and preventing bugs from being introduced.
Note that this rule does not take reflection into account, which means that issues will be raised on private methods that are only
accessed using the reflection API.
Noncompliant Code Example
public class Foo implements Serializable
{
private Foo(){} //Compliant, private empty constructor intentionally used to prevent any direct instantiation of a class.
public static void doSomething(){
Foo foo = new Foo();
...
}
private void unusedPrivateMethod(){...}
private void writeObject(ObjectOutputStream s){...} //Compliant, relates to the java serialization mechanism
private void readObject(ObjectInputStream in){...} //Compliant, relates to the java serialization mechanism
}
Compliant Solution
public class Foo implements Serializable
{
private Foo(){} //Compliant, private empty constructor intentionally used to prevent any direct instantiation of a class.
public static void doSomething(){
Foo foo = new Foo();
...
}
private void writeObject(ObjectOutputStream s){...} //Compliant, relates to the java serialization mechanism
private void readObject(ObjectInputStream in){...} //Compliant, relates to the java serialization mechanism
}
Exceptions
This rule doesn’t raise issues for:
- annotated methods
- methods with parameters that are annotated with
@javax.enterprise.event.Observes
