locating and removing unreferenced values in strings.xml

Question

Whilst eclipse tells me about unreferenced variables, classes and imports, it doesn't tell me if there are values in the resource files that are not used.

Being able to remove everything that is not used would be very useful from a translation point of view.

Is there a tool out there that can do this?

mibollma · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-16T17:26:56.223

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Option 1:

NOTE: Does not work for resources referenced directly in xml and ids loaded through reflection.

Considering that generated ids of all resources are located inside your R.java file this should be possible using the Eclipse Core Tools.

The menu option looks like this: Find Unreferenced Members

Option 2:

Android Unused Resources is a Java application that will scan your project for unused resources. Unused resources needlessly take up space, increase the build time, and clutter the IDE's autocomplete list.

http://code.google.com/p/android-unused-resources/

edited Aug 16 '11 at 17:26

answered Aug 16 '11 at 16:29

mibollma

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But will this be able to identify those String resources that are referenced directly in XML? – curioustechizen Aug 16 '11 at 16:50
yeah, that is a good point. This looks like a good tool (if I could actually get it working) but I'd need it to also include my arrays resources and layouts which also reference strings. – Chris Simpson Aug 16 '11 at 17:08
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Just download it and copy the jars in your eclipse plugins folder... that's it. – mibollma Aug 16 '11 at 17:09
yeah I did that and didn't get the menu option in your screenshot, then went looking for help and tried all manner of things with debug options and option files. It's quite possibly a Win7/64 issue. – Chris Simpson Aug 16 '11 at 17:15
Strange... maybe this is worth a try too: http://code.google.com/p/android-unused-resources/ – mibollma Aug 16 '11 at 17:16
that looks interesting, maybe you should post as a second answer? – Chris Simpson Aug 16 '11 at 17:23
Edited my answer... however i have no idea how well it works. – mibollma Aug 16 '11 at 17:28

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

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Android Lint is your friend. Inside the ant project, just type

ant lint

It will give a UnusedResource warning in such cases.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Community

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answered Nov 04 '15 at 08:34

serv-inc

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 16 '11 at 17:09

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The simplest (and slowest) way that I can think of is to delete them, one by one, and let eclipse rebuild your project. If it produces an error, then you know it was used, otherwise, you're ok without it.

answered Aug 16 '11 at 17:09

Travis

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I thought about this but it takes roughly 20 seconds to build my project (on a good day) meaning it would take several hours to complete this. Also, if there is only a reference in a layout file, do you still get a compile error? – Chris Simpson Aug 16 '11 at 17:19
I think you do. Another approach would depend on the tools you have installed (to a lesser degree, the os you're running on). It would be possible to write a bash script that employed the use of find and grep to determine if the string was used anywhere in a .java or .xml file, then you could know that the string's name wasn't referenced anywhere, and perform the above suggested work on a smaller subset of the data rather than everything. It's just a thought – Travis Aug 16 '11 at 19:23

locating and removing unreferenced values in strings.xml

3 Answers3