# autoflake8
[](https://github.com/fsouza/autoflake8/actions/workflows/main.yaml)
## Introduction
*autoflake8* removes unused imports and unused variables from Python code. It
makes use of [pyflakes](https://pypi.org/project/pyflakes/) to do this.
autoflake8 also removes useless ``pass`` statements by default.
It's a maintained fork of [autoflake](https://github.com/myint/autoflake).
## Differences from autoflake
This fork of autoflake removed some features from autoflake and modified
certain behaviors. The main motivations for those changes is the idea that
autoflake8 is built for users of flake8 and it's assumed that if you're using
autoflake8, you're also using flake8. This motivated the removal of the flags
`--imports` and `--remove-all-unused-imports`: if you want to preserve an
import for its side-effect, use `# noqa`.
Additionally, `autoflake8` also supports load from `stdin` and printing to
`stdout`, which makes it very easy for users to integrate with their custom
editors.
Finally, a big difference is that `autoflake8` exits with status 1 when it
detects issues/rewrite files. For editor integration, the new flag
`--exit-zero-even-if-changed` can be used. When that flag is defined,
`autoflake8` will return status 0 even when it modifies files.
In terms of future plans, we also plan to eventually stop using regular
expressions and rely on actual AST rewriting to fix issues reported by flake8.
## Example
Running autoflake8 on the below example:
```
$ autoflake8 --in-place --remove-unused-variables example.py
```
```python
import math
import re
import os
import random
import multiprocessing
import grp, pwd, platform
import subprocess, sys
def foo():
from abc import ABCMeta, WeakSet
try:
import multiprocessing
print(multiprocessing.cpu_count())
except ImportError as exception:
print(sys.version)
return math.pi
```
Results in:
```python
import math
import sys
def foo():
try:
import multiprocessing
print(multiprocessing.cpu_count())
except ImportError:
print(sys.version)
return math.pi
```
## Installation
```
$ pip install --upgrade autoflake8
```
## Using as a pre-commit hook
`autoflake8` can be used as a pre-commit hook. See
[pre-commit](https://pre-commit.com/#plugins) for instructions.
Sample `.pre-commit-config.yaml`:
```yaml
- repo: https://github.com/fsouza/autoflake8
rev: v0.4.0
hooks:
- id: autoflake8
```
## Advanced usage
To remove unused variables, use the ``--remove-unused-variables`` option.
Below is the full listing of options:
```
usage: autoflake8 [-h] [-c] [-r] [--exclude globs] [--expand-star-imports] [--remove-duplicate-keys] [--remove-unused-variables] [--version] [-v] [--exit-zero-even-if-changed] [-i | -s] files [files ...]
positional arguments:
files files to format
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-c, --check return error code if changes are needed
-r, --recursive drill down directories recursively
--exclude globs exclude file/directory names that match these comma-separated globs
--expand-star-imports
expand wildcard star imports with undefined names; this only triggers if there is only one star import in the file; this is skipped if there are any uses of `__all__` or `del` in the file
--remove-duplicate-keys
remove all duplicate keys in objects
--remove-unused-variables
remove unused variables
--keep-pass-statements
keep all `pass` statements
--keep-pass-after-docstring
keep `pass` statements after a newline ending on """
--version show program's version number and exit
-v, --verbose print more verbose logs (you can repeat `-v` to make it more verbose)
--exit-zero-even-if-changed
-i, --in-place make changes to files instead of printing diffs
-s, --stdout print changed text to stdout. defaults to true when formatting stdin, or to false otherwise
```
### Tests
To run the unit tests:
```
$ poetry run pytest
```
There is also a fuzz test, which runs against any collection of given Python
files. It tests autoflake8 against the files and checks how well it does by
running pyflakes on the file before and after. The test fails if the pyflakes
results change for the worse. (This is done in memory. The actual files are
left untouched):
```
$ scripts/fuzz.sh
```
## Excluding specific lines
It might be the case that you have some imports for their side effects, even
if you are not using them directly in that file.
That is common, for example, in Flask based applications. In where you import
Python modules (files) that imported a main ``app``, to have them included in
the routes.
For example:
```python
from .endpoints import role, token, user, utils
```
To prevent that, without having to exclude the entire file, you can add a
``# noqa`` comment at the end of the line, like:
```python
from .endpoints import role, token, user, utils # noqa
```
That line will instruct ``autoflake8`` to let that specific line as is.