I’ve recently been getting into go. I’ve built a few packages and libraries.

For this post, let’s explore the ‘gofmt’ or ‘go fmt’ tool further.

Go ships with a basic set of tools common to most languages and development environments. Like most things with go, the tools are simple in design, but powerful in function.

go build – compile the code

go install – install (and build) a package

go get – download and install packages including dependencies

go test – run test suites and benchmarks

go doc – generate and view documentation

go fmt – format and refactor your code

go run – build and run an app

First thing to note, ‘go fmt’ is just an alias for ‘gofmt -l -w’. When following along, please take note as the two accept different parameters.

Using gofmt to format code

We’ve had decades of endless argument and debate about the correct format of software. Each language has it’s own different idioms and changes and many have multiple differing standards. Golang has done away with these endless debates once and for all by shipping a formatter that ensures that all go code follows the exact same format.

Go fmt isn’t without it’s detractors. People complain that go fmt isn’t customizable and that it puts braces where they don’t want them. A standard isn’t customizable, and it’s this thinking that has caused so much controversy in every other language. Go fmt is great. Not only does it know the correct format, but it understands go code. It properly lines up definitions, properly wraps if statements when they grow to long and ensures that your code completely conforms to the standard.

The best part of this is that all my code complies with the format standard perfectly and I’ve never read the go format policy. I just write code and run go fmt on that code and immediately my code conforms.

Preview which changes gofmt will make

The following command will show you all the changes gofmt will make in diff format.

$ gofmt -d path-to-code

Given a file, it operates on that file; given a directory, it operates on all .go files in that directory, recursively.

Format your code

The following command will make changes directly to your source files.

$ gofmt path-to-code or $go fmt -l -w -s path-to-code

Here is an example of the kind of changes gofmt would make

func (f *Filesystem) Files() []*File { - if len(f.files)<1 {f.captureFiles()} + if len(f.files) < 1 { + f.captureFiles() + } return f.files }

Given a file, it operates on that file; given a directory, it operates on all .go files in that directory, recursively.

Simplify mode

‘gofmt’ can also simplify code where appropriate with the additional -s flag. I have found that simplify is safe to use and only will modify code when it’s obvious and clear.

Here is an example of the kind of changes simplify would make.

- final = append(final, first[start:len(first)]...) + final = append(final, first[start:]...)

Using gofmt to refactor code

gofmt is much more powerful than simply eliminating arguments about code formatting. It can also restructure your code. Unlike using traditional unix tools like awk and grep, gofmt understands go code and can be used to restructure your code easily.

gofmt uses patterns to identify changes to make to your code. Patterns are established in the first half the expression followed by a ‘->’ then used by the second half of the expression.

Use the flag -d instead of -w to check what gofmt will do prior to running it.

Examples

To check files for unnecessary parentheses (example from the docs):

gofmt -r '(a) -> a' -l *.go diff hugolib/summary.go gofmt/hugolib/summary.go for i, line := range rstLines { if strings.HasPrefix(line, "<body>") { - rstLines = (rstLines[i+1 : len(rstLines)-3]) + rstLines = rstLines[i+1 : len(rstLines)-3] } } diff parser/parse_frontmatter_test.go gofmt/parser/parse_frontmatter_test.go - if (err == nil) != test.errIsNil { + if err == nil != test.errIsNil {

Rename a field in a struct. Notice how it not only changes the definition, but every place that the value is set or referenced.