TL;DR:
Do test written within a package end up in the final exported package? Do they add any garbage or weight to a compiled binary?
Longer version:
Let's say that I have a foo Go package:
pkg/
foo/
bar.go
bar_test.go
I'm aware of the black box vs white box approaches to testing in go. A short recap is that I can either:
have bar_test.go declare a foo_test package, or
have it part of the main foo package.
Approach 1 provides better isolation because it allows to focus on the public API of the package, as one only access the exported identifiers of foo. Also, when application code imports the foo package with import "pkg/foo", only the files containing the main foo package are compiled. That's nice. [1]
However, there are cases where putting the tests in foo is a convenient compromise. I don't particularly like it myself, but I can see it in several codebases and I understand why at times it's necessary.
My question is about what happens to these tests. Since they're part of the package foo, when foo is imported somewhere, I'd expect the tests to be brought along. Or is the compiler smart enough to strip them?
[1] this is not a question on what approach is "better". It's doesn't really matter. Please abstain from commenting with "that approach is not better".
Yes, the Go tool is smart enough not to pass them to the compiler.
https://github.com/golang/go/issues/10184
Related
I've project done in C++ where I used #define macros to give a name of the project, which I used in several places, I don't change this name often but sometimes I may need to change this, then I change this macro and rebuild my code. Now I'm converting this code to Go. Can someone suggest me how to implement this in Go? I'm not interested in using global variables for this purpose because I've many such macros and I doubt this cause my project to occupy more cpu and effect the performance.
Luckily, Go does not support macros.
There are two venues in Go to implement what is done using macros
in other programming languages:
"Meta-programming" is done using code generation.
"Magic variables/constants" are implemented using "symbol substitutions"
at link time.
It appears, the latter is what you're after.
Unfortunately, the help on this feature is nearly undiscoverable
on itself, but it explained in the output of
$ go tool link -help
To cite the relevant bit from it:
-X definition
add string value definition of the form importpath.name=value
So you roll like this:
In any package, where it is convenient,
you define a string constant the value of which you'd like to change at build time.
Let's say, you define constant Bar in package foo.
You pass a special flag to the go build or go install invocation for the linking phase at compile time:
$ go install -ldflags='-X foo.Bar="my super cool string"'
As the result, the produced binary will have the constant foo.Bar
set to the value "my super cool string" in its "read-only data" segment,
and that value will be used by the program's code.
See also the go help build output about the -ldflags option.
Go doesn't support Macros.
but you can use a constants inside a package and refer it where ever you need.
package constant
// constants.go file
const (
ProjectName = "My Project"
Title = "Awesome Title"
)
and in your program
package main
import "<path to project>/constant" // replace the path to project with your path from GOPATH
func main() {
fmt.Println(constant.ProjectName)
}
The project structure would be
project
|- constant
| |- constants.go
|-main.go
I am developing a go package, which is a little bit complex and thus I want to organize the source code into multiple directories.
However, I don't want the users of the package to have to use too long imports. Anyways, the internal structure of the package isn't their concern.
Thus, my package structure looks so:
subDir1
subSubDir1
subSubDir2
subDir2
subSubDir3
...and so on. All of them have their exported calls.
I would like to avoid that my users have to import
import (
"mypackage/subDir1"
"mypackage/subDir1/subSubDir2"
)
...and so on.
I only want, if they want to use an exported function from my package, they should have access all of them by simply importing mypackage.
I tried that I declare package mypackage in all of the .go files. Thus, I had source files in different directories, but with the same package declaration.
In this case, the problem what I've confronted was that I simply couldn't import multiple directories from the same package. It said:
./src1.go:6:15: error: redefinition of ‘mypackage’
"mypackage/mysubdir1"
^
./src1.go:4:10: note: previous definition of ‘mypackage’ was here
"mypackage"
^
./src1.go:5:15: error: redefinition of ‘mypackage’
"mypackage/mysubdir2"
^
./src1.go:4:10: note: previous definition of ‘mypackage’ was here
"mypackage"
^
Is it somehow possible?
You should not do this in any case, as the language spec allows a compiler implementation to reject such constructs. Quoting from Spec: Package clause:
A set of files sharing the same PackageName form the implementation of a package. An implementation may require that all source files for a package inhabit the same directory.
Instead "structure" your file names to mimic the folder structure; e.g. instead of files of
foo/foo1.go
foo/bar/bar1.go
foo/bar/bar2.go
You could simply use:
foo/foo1.go
foo/bar-bar1.go
foo/bar-bar2.go
Also if your package is so big that you would need multiple folders to even "host" the files of the package implementation, you should really consider not implementing it as a single package, but break it into multiple packages.
Also note that Go 1.5 introduced internal packages. If you create a special internal subfolder inside your package folder, you may create any number of subpackages inside that (even using multiple levels). Your package will be able to import and use them (or to be more precise all packages rooted at your package folder), but no one else outside will be able to do so, it would be a compile time error.
E.g. you may create a foo package, have a foo/foo.go file, and foo/internal/bar package. foo will be able to import foo/internal/bar, but e.g. boo won't. Also foo/baz will also be able to import and use foo/internal/bar because it's rooted at foo/.
So you may use internal packages to break down your big package into smaller ones, effectively grouping your source files into multiple folders. Only thing you have to pay attention to is to put everything your package wants to export into the package and not into the internal packages (as those are not importable / visible from the "outside").
Inside your package source code, you have to differentiate your source directories by renamed imports. You can declare the same package mypackage in all of your source files (even if they are in different directories).
However, while you import them, you should give an induvidual names to the directories. In your source src1.go, import the other directories on this way:
import (
"mypackage"
submodule1 "mypackage/mySubDir"
)
And you will be able to reach the API defined in "mypackage" as mypackage.AnyThing(), and the API defined in mySubDir as submodule1.AnyThing().
The external world (i.e. the users of your package) will see all exported entities in myPackage.AnyThing().
Avoid namespace collisions. And use better understable, intuitive naming as in the example.
Yes, this is doable without any problems, just invoke the Go compiler by hand, that is not via the go tool.
But the best advice is: Don't do that. It's ugly and unnecessarily complicated. Just design your package properly.
Addendum (because the real intention of this answer seems to get lost sometimes, maybe because irony is too subtle): Don't do that!! This is an incredible stupid idea! Stop fighting the tools! Everybody will rightfully hate you if you do that! Nobody will understand your code or be able to compile it! Just because something is doable in theory doesn't mean this is a sensible idea in any way. Not even for "learning purpose"! You probably even don't know how to invoke the Go compiler by hand and if you figure it out it will be a major pita.
I have read the Go Tour and Googled "golang packages" but I have not yet found any advice about best practice in Go for organising moderately sized applications.
If I have an application that conceptually has several distinct parts, perhaps 10^3-10^4 LOC, and I don't intent to create reusable libraries for use in other applications, should all the source code files be package main?
To clarify ...
For example, lets say my program will have the following major chunks:
Something that manages a bunch of persistently stored data
allowing usual create, read, update, delete operations
Something that allows a human to view the stored data
Something that coordinates / mediates between these
Something that periodically fetches data updates from a web-service using SOAP.
So that would be MVC plus a fetcher of data.
From looking around at what people do, I now suspect I should
create $GOPATH/src/myprogramname
in there put some main.go with package main and func main() { ... } in it.
create some subdirectories like
$GOPATH/src/myprogramname/model
$GOPATH/src/myprogramname/view
$GOPATH/src/myprogramname/control
$GOPATH/src/myprogramname/fetch
have the .go files in those subdirectories begin with package fetch, etc. Where the package name always matches the subdirectory name.
my main.go will probably import ( ... "fetch"; "model"; "view"; "control" )
as main.go grows, split it into other reasonably sized .go files named according to purpose.
build the program, including *.go in the above package subdirectories by
cd $GOPATH/src/myprogramname
go build
Is that all I need to do? Is that the properly idiomatic Go way of organising things? Is there more I should know or be thinking of? Is there some canonical webpage or PDF I overlooked and should read to find out this stuff?
In short, I don't want a 10,000 line main.go with everything in it. What are the idiomatic Go principles for organising code into files, subdirectories, packages and any other organisational units corresponding to normal conceptual divisions according to well-known structured-programming and/or OO principles?
You could break down your project into several layers based on the encapsulation level of your functions, i.e. having low-level functions in separate packages and logic functions in your main package. (You could inspire yourself of MVC-like architectures)
Since we don't have any details about your code, it is hard to see what kind of architecture would be best suited.
But in the end your choice will be based on the code simplicity / re-usability balance.
The general "best practice" in Go seems to be having each package provide a type or a service. Most of the packages in the standard library expose one or two types, and functions for working with those types. Some, like net/http and testing, provide a service - not in the "microservices" sense of something executable in itself, but rather a set of functionality related to a specific activity.
Assume there is a function F in package A that some code I'm creating needs to call. How do I call it?
If I'm Calling it from outside package A, then I uses A.F(...) and if I'm inside A I uses F(...). But what if Murphy prevents me from knowing which is true or requires a byte identical line work in both?
[note: I'm taking it as a given that such a case will occur because, in my experience and observations, that is generally a safe assumption. Even in the absence of technical reasons for it, PHBs and legislators are good sources of the ridiculous.]
There is no such syntax. Observe the following things:
Cyclical imports are forbidden. This especially means that a package cannot import itself. Thus, a package cannot refer to one of its symbols S with the pkg.S syntax because it will not be able to import itself.
Even if you solved that problem, observe that packages can be given an arbitrary name once imported. For instance, you could do:
import bar "foo"
Which imports S from package "foo" as bar.S as opposed to the expected foo.S.
The following things could be used to work around this:
In the package "foo", create an internal object foo whose members are the symbols foo exports. This allows you to use the foo.S syntax in foo itself, but is a horrible kludge.
Use an import declaration like
import . "foo"
which allows you to use symbol S from package "foo" as S, i. e. without prefix. Notice that this kind of import declaration, called dot imports, is considered bad style and might break things if the set of symbols you declare / the package you import declares changes.
Say I have got code for a project spread across multiple files. Is there any other way to reference such code within files in the project without going through the whole build and install process? For example within a single project, I might have an implementation of a type Foo in file A and I might want to use such type in file B within the same project. Is there anyway to go about doing that
It's not clear to me what exactly you're asking about, but this part of the language specs about "Declarations and scope" might be related and/or helpful. Another, more prosaic source of related information might probably be "How to Write Go Code".
EDIT - Expanding on now expanded question:
If "package a" declares type Foo - then, b/c Foo starts with an upper case letter - Foo is exported by a. Then in "package b" one would write import "a" and can then refer to that type as a.Foo inside "package b".