Term defined but never used
unused-definitionon by default (info)Japanese / English
A term the document defines and then never uses
Example
How to fix
Delete the definition if nothing uses it. If the body calls the same thing by another word, use one of the two throughout.
Why it matters
A term defined and then never used makes the reader learn it for nothing. Usually the body was reworded to another word and the definition stayed behind, so check whether the body now uses a different word for the same thing.
What it does not flag
Only terms defined in a recognised form ("X" means, (the "X")) are checked. Plurals and possessives (Services, Seller's) count as uses, and so does the term in a heading. A phrase of a gerund and its object (Exercising your options) is also used where its verb is written in another form (exercise your options). A second definition of the same term is duplicate-definition's to report. A term defined for a unit of a code the document sits in ("For the purpose of this subchapter—") is not checked when the document has no heading for that unit, because the unit's other sections use it.
Turning it off or relaxing it
Technical details
- Layer
- L3
- Status
- stable
- Severity
- info
- Languages
- Japanese and English
- Suited to
- business, technical, blog, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech
- Reads from the document
- structure
Levels
Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).
| strict | warning |
|---|---|
| normal | info |
| relaxed | info |
This rule has no limit to count to. A level sets how a finding is marked: relaxed keeps the finding and marks it a step lower.
By genre
- Runs by default in
- technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play, speech/address, speech/transcript
Message
"{term}" is defined but never used
Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay
This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/unused-definition.yaml