Detecting superfluous #includes in C/C++?

Question

I often find that the headers section of a file get larger and larger all the time but it never gets smaller. Throughout the life of a source file classes may have moved and been refactored and it's very possible that there are quite a few `#includes` that don't need to be there and anymore. Leaving them there only prolong the compile time and adds unnecessary compilation dependencies. Trying to figure out which are still needed can be quite tedious. Is there some kind of tool that can detect superfluous #include directives and suggest which ones I can safely remove? Does lint do this maybe?

Answer 1

Perhaps there is some 3rd party software that analyzes dependencies

this is exactly the reason for the BEST PRACTICE of doing:

#indef _filename

#include "filename.h"

#endif

if the header was included previously, then the _filename gets defined

and the header will not be included again... otherwise it will