How to automatically remove methods in java code

Question

I need to remove some methods in a large java project and I was wondering if there are tools that would help me do so. I would basically specify a signature and a source folder in which all the matching method would be removed.

It no such thing exists then I will write a script.

Answer 1

I looked for quick solutions and did not find any, I used different tools to get there:

1. grep to find all the files containing the main methods I wanted to remove
2. find/replace in these files to make those methods private
3. Eclipse clean-up with just one rule: remove unused private methods

It did the job with the minor side effect of removing other unused private methods. It is not a big deal in the context of that project since pretty much all the files were previously saved with a save action removing unused private methods.

Thanks all for the input, it may be applicable later on.