Getting rid of redundant #import lines

Question

In my Cocoa development, every so often I include a header into a source file so I can use a particular class in it. But then later I delete that code from the source file, and forget (or don't really want to worry about) deleting the corresponding #import.

With time, a lot of redundant #import lines pile up in my source files, throughout the codebase.

Now, I know that these lines cause no harm, but is there any easy way to get rid of them automatically? At least it would make the top of every file cleaner ;)

Answer 1

There's a tool that does this for C and C++, but as far as I could tell, it doesn't yet support Objective-C. I've filed a ticket to ask for that.

Answer 2

nothing comprehensive off the shelf comes to mind.

1) JetBrains' AppCode may help. It's quite young at this time (e.g. not even 'beta', but it is publicly distributed), and doesn't fully understand structures of includes and nontrivial xcode projects and build settings, but it is likely smart enough to handle simpler cases.

2) you could create some scripts to accomplish what you're after. it wouldn't be terrible if you already have a project which builds out everything using common build settings. doing this manually is a pain, and is usually not a good use of time in larger projects if you are not using a high level of automation.