Cleanup abandoned flags

[Gauthier Ambard]

Hi Chrome flags!

After reviewing a few flag clean up CLs, I realized that sometimes the metadata associated with the flags aren't removed even if the flag itself is removed.
I have removed some (~170) flags that are expired and are not in the about_flags files.

https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/7380109

I can send an email to all owners, mentioning that I will land the CL in one week unless they have an objection.

How do you feel about it?

Thanks,

Gauthier

[Avi Drissman]

That looks great, +1.

This is a bit tricky, as there's no good way to programmatically detect this via compilation, due to various build configurations. Is there any good way to do a raw text search of the repo as a presubmit? :/

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "flags-dev" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to flags-dev+...@chromium.org.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/flags-dev/CAFpJR84hN4dDNjRFJiZheaDV%2BWXQ4KyOS-sfXgfPw_QjYU5%2B9A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Gauthier Ambard]

In addition to the cost of doing a string search, I think the main issue is that I don't have a good trigger for "is this particular string still used?" and not just searching for all strings in the metadata, which is too much.
My original approach was to remove all flags that were not in the various about_flags files and it was too aggressive. For example it removed the "enable-lens-standalone" flag because the string is used through a variable and not directly in the about_flag file.

Also, as you gave +1, are we ok with landing this CL now without warning owners?

Gauthier

[Avi Drissman]

If these flags are genuinely dead and unused, then I don't consider it a problem cleaning up after owners who failed to fully remove their flags, and I don't think we need to bother them.

Avi