phpdcd is a Dead Code Detector (DCD) for PHP code. It scans a PHP project for all declared functions and methods and reports those as being "dead code" that are not called at least once.
As PHP is a very dynamic programming language, the static analysis performed by phpdcd does not recognize function or method calls that are performed using one of the following language features:
- Reflection API
call_user_func()andcall_user_func_array()- Usage of the
newoperator with variable class names - Variable class names for static method calls such as
$class::method() - Variable function or method names such as
$function()or$object->$method() - Automatic calls to methods such as
__toString()orIterator::*()
Also note that infering the type of a variable is limited to type-hinted arguments (function foo(Bar $bar) {}) and direct object creation ($object = new Clazz)
phpdcd should be installed using the PEAR Installer. This installer is the backbone of PEAR, which provides a distribution system for PHP packages, and is shipped with every release of PHP since version 4.3.0.
The PEAR channel (pear.phpunit.de) that is used to distribute phpdcd needs to be registered with the local PEAR environment. Furthermore, a component that phpdcd depends upon is hosted on the eZ Components PEAR channel (components.ez.no).
sb@ubuntu ~ % pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
Adding Channel "pear.phpunit.de" succeeded
Discovery of channel "pear.phpunit.de" succeeded
sb@ubuntu ~ % pear channel-discover components.ez.no
Adding Channel "components.ez.no" succeeded
Discovery of channel "components.ez.no" succeeded
This has to be done only once. Now the PEAR Installer can be used to install packages from the PHPUnit channel:
sb@ubuntu ~ % pear install phpunit/phpdcd-beta
downloading phpdcd-0.9.2.tgz ...
Starting to download phpdcd-0.9.2.tgz (5,674 bytes)
.....done: 5,674 bytes
downloading File_Iterator-1.1.0.tgz ...
Starting to download File_Iterator-1.1.0.tgz (3,181 bytes)
...done: 3,181 bytes
downloading ConsoleTools-1.6.tgz ...
Starting to download ConsoleTools-1.6.tgz (869,925 bytes)
.........................................................
.........................................................
.........................................................
..done: 869,925 bytes
downloading Base-1.8.tgz ...
Starting to download Base-1.8.tgz (236,357 bytes)
...done: 236,357 bytes
install ok: channel://components.ez.no/Base-1.8
install ok: channel://components.ez.no/ConsoleTools-1.6
install ok: channel://pear.phpunit.de/File_Iterator-1.1.0
install ok: channel://pear.phpunit.de/phpdcd-0.9.2
After the installation you can find the phpdcd source files inside your local PEAR directory; the path is usually /usr/lib/php/PHPDCD.