Unreferenced Files

A utility for finding unused and unreferenced files.

• Usage
  • Additional Arguments
  • Example
• Examples
  • GitHub Actions
  • GitLab CI
• Installation
  • Binary
  • Cargo
  • Docker

Usage

unreferenced_files is a very simple and fast tool. All files inside any of the directories or files provided via the arguments --search-for <search-for> are recorded. The referencing of these files are searched for inside the directories or files provided by the arguments --search <search>.

By default, the referencing of a file is search for via looking for the relative path of the file, the file name, and the file stem inside each file. If the search for and search files overlap then a file will not search itself to finds self references.

e.g.

tree parent

parent/
├── child
│   └── file2.txt
└── file1.txt

For the example directory above, if the argument was --search-for parent/ then for the file parent/file1.txt the relative path of parent/file1.txt, the file name file1.txt, and the file stem file1 would be searched for. For the file parent/child/file2.txt the relative path of parent/child/file2.txt, the file name file2.txt and file stem file2 would be searched for.

Additional Arguments

Additional command line flags can be passed to alter what is searched for to determine if a file is referenced.

Example

For an example Java project with tests referencing files inside src/test/resources/ where the tests are calling the files by name e.g.

@Test
public void testImportingFile() {
    ...
    import("file.txt");
    ...
    import("/JSON/file.json");
    ...
}

You can find all the unreferenced files inside src/test/resources/ via

cd src/test/resources/
unreferenced_files --search-for ./ --search ../java/

Examples

GitHub Actions

name: CI

on: pull_request

jobs:
  check-unreferenced-files:
    name: Check Unreferenced Files
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code.
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Install Unreferenced Files.
        run: version="v2.2.0" && wget -O - "https://github.com/DeveloperC286/unreferenced_files/releases/download/${version}/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz" | tar xz --directory "/usr/bin/"
      - name: Check for unreferenced files
        run: unreferenced_files --search-for src/test/resources/ --search src/test/java/ --assert-no-unreferenced-files

GitLab CI

check-unreferenced-files:
  stage: check-unreferenced-files
  image: rust
  before_script:
    - version="v2.2.0" && wget -O - "https://github.com/DeveloperC286/unreferenced_files/releases/download/${version}/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz" | tar xz --directory "/usr/bin/"
  script:
    - unreferenced_files --search-for src/test/resources/ --search src/test/java/ --assert-no-unreferenced-files
  rules:
    - if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID

Installation

Binary

version="v2.2.0" && wget -O - "https://github.com/DeveloperC286/unreferenced_files/releases/download/${version}/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz" | tar xz --directory "/usr/bin/"

Cargo

Cargo is the Rust package manager, the install sub-command pulls from crates.io and then compiles the binary locally, placing the compiled binary at ${HOME}/.cargo/bin/unreferenced_files.

cargo install unreferenced_files

By default it installs the latest version at the time of execution. You can specify a specific version to install using the --version argument. For certain environments such as CICD etc you may want to pin the version.

e.g.

cargo install unreferenced_files --version 2.2.0

Rather than pinning to a specific version you can specify the major or minor version.

e.g.

cargo install unreferenced_files --version ^2

Will download the latest 2.* release whether that is 2.0.0 or 2.7.0.

Docker

You can use the Docker image published to ghcr.io/developerc286/unreferenced_files.

Issues/Feature Requests

Report issues or request features on our GitHub Issues.