This page documents gopls features for navigating your source code.
The LSP textDocument/definition
request returns the location of the declaration of the symbol under the cursor.
Most editors provide a command to navigate directly to that location.
A definition query also works in these unexpected places:
- On an import path, it returns the list of locations, of each package declaration in the files of the imported package.
- On a package declaration, it returns the location of the package declaration that provides the documentation of that package.
- On a symbol in a
go:linkname
directive, it returns the location of that symbol's declaration. - On a doc link, it returns
(like
hover
) the location of the linked symbol. - On a file name in a
go:embed
directive, it returns the location of the embedded file. - On the declaration of a non-Go function (a
func
with no body), it returns the location of the assembly implementation, if any, - On a return statement, it returns the location of the function's result variables.
- On a goto, break, or continue statement, it returns the location of the label, the closing brace of the relevant block statement, or the start of the relevant loop, respectively.
Client support:
- VS Code: Use Go to Definition (
F12
or⌘
-click). If the cursor is already at the declaration, the request is instead interpreted as "Go to References". - Emacs + eglot: use
M-x xref-find-definitions
. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI:
gopls definition file.go:#offset
The LSP textDocument/references
request returns the locations of all identifiers that refer to the symbol under the cursor.
The references algorithm handles various parts of syntax as follows:
- The references to a symbol report all uses of that symbol. In the case of exported symbols this may include locations in other packages.
- The references to a package declaration are all the direct imports of the package, along with all the other package declarations in the same package.
- It is an error to request the references to a built-in symbol
such as
int
orappend
, as they are presumed too numerous to be of interest. - The references to an interface method include references to concrete types that implement the interface. Similarly, the references to a method of a concrete type include references to corresponding interface methods.
- An embedded field
T
in a struct type such asstruct{T}
is unique in Go in that it is both a reference (to a type) and a definition (of a field). Thereferences
operation reports only the references to it as a field. To find references to the type, jump to the type declararation first.
Be aware that a references query returns information only about the
build configuration used to analyze the selected file, so if you ask
for the references to a symbol defined in foo_windows.go
, the result
will never include the file bar_linux.go
, even if that file refers
to a symbol of the same name; see golang/go#65755.
Clients can request that the the declaration be included among the references; most do.
Client support:
- VS Code: Use
Go to References
to quickly "peek" at the references, orFind all References
to open the references panel. - Emacs + eglot: Via
xref
package: useM-x xref-find-references
. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI:
gopls references file.go:#offset
The LSP
textDocument/implementation
request queries the "implements" relation between interfaces and concrete types:
- When invoked on a reference to an interface type, it returns the location of the declaration of each type that implements the interface.
- When invoked on a concrete type, it returns the locations of the matching interface types.
- When invoked on an interface method, it returns the corresponding methods of the types that satisfy the interface.
- When invoked on a concrete method, it returns the locations of the matching interface methods.
Only non-trivial interfaces are considered; no implementations are
reported for type any
.
Within the same package, all matching types/methods are reported. However, across packages, only exported package-level types and their methods are reported, so local types (whether interfaces, or struct types with methods due to embedding) may be missing from the results.
If either the target type or the candidate type are generic, the results will include the candidate type if there is any instantiation of the two types that would allow one to implement the other. (Note: the matcher doesn't current implement full unification, so type parameters are treated like wildcards that may match arbitrary types, without regard to consistency of substitutions across the method set or even within a single method. This may lead to occasional spurious matches.)
Client support:
- VS Code: Use Go to Implementations (
⌘F12
). - Emacs + eglot: Use
M-x eglot-find-implementation
. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI:
gopls implementation file.go:#offset
The LSP
textDocument/typeDefinition
request returns the location of the type of the selected symbol.
For example, if the selection is the name buf
of a local variable of
type *bytes.Buffer
, a typeDefinition
query will return the
location of the type bytes.Buffer
.
Clients typically navigate to that location.
Type constructors such as pointer, array, slice, channel, and map are
stripped off the selected type in the search for a named type. For
example, if x is of type chan []*T
, the reported type definition
will be that of T
.
Similarly, if the symbol's type is a function with one "interesting"
(named, non-error
) result type, the function's result type is used.
Gopls currently requires that a typeDefinition
query be applied to a
symbol, not to an arbitrary expression; see golang/go#67890 for
potential extensions of this functionality.
Client support:
- VS Code: Use Go to Type Definition.
- Emacs + eglot: Use
M-x eglot-find-typeDefinition
. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI: not supported
The textDocument/documentSymbol
LSP query reports the list of
top-level declarations in this file. Clients may use this information
to present an overview of the file, and an index for faster navigation.
Gopls responds with the
DocumentSymbol
type if the client indicates
hierarchicalDocumentSymbolSupport
;
otherwise it returns a
SymbolInformation
.
Client support:
- VS Code: Use the Outline view for navigation.
- Emacs + eglot: Use
M-x imenu
to jump to a symbol. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI:
gopls links file.go
The
workspace/symbol
LSP query searches an index of all the symbols in the workspace.
The default symbol matching algorithm (fastFuzzy
), inspired by the
popular fuzzy matcher FZF, attempts
a variety of inexact matches to correct for misspellings or abbreviations in your
query. For example, it considers DocSym
a match for DocumentSymbol
.
Settings:
- The
symbolMatcher
setting controls the algorithm used for symbol matching. - The
symbolStyle
setting controls how symbols are qualified in symbol responses. - The
symbolScope
setting determines the scope of the query. - The
directoryFilters
setting specifies directories to be excluded from the search.
Client support:
- VS Code: Use ⌘T to open Go to Symbol with workspace scope. (Alternatively, use Ctrl-Shift-O, and add a
@
prefix to search within the file or a#
prefix to search throughout the workspace.) - Emacs + eglot: Use
M-x xref-find-apropos
to show symbols that match a search term. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI:
gopls links file.go
The
textDocument/selectionRange
LSP query returns information about the lexical extent of each piece
of syntax enclosing the current selection.
Clients may use it to provide an operation to expand the selection
to successively larger expressions.
Client support:
- VSCode: Use
⌘⇧^→
to expand the selection or⌘⇧^←
to contract it again; watch this video. - Emacs + eglot: Not standard. Use
M-x eglot-expand-selection
defined in this configuration snippet. - Vim + coc.nvim: ??
- CLI: not supported
The LSP CallHierarchy mechanism consists of three queries that together enable clients to present a hierarchical view of a portion of the static call graph:
textDocument/prepareCallHierarchy
returns a list of items for a given position, each representing a named function or method enclosing the position;callHierarchyItem/incomingCalls
returns the set of call sites that call the selected item; andcallHierarchy/outgoingCalls
returns the set of functions called by the selected item.
Invoke the command while selecting the name in a function declaration.
Dynamic calls are not included, because it is not analytically practical to detect them. So, beware that the results may not be exhaustive, and perform a References query if necessary.
The hierarchy does not consider a nested function distinct from its enclosing named function. (Without the ability to detect dynamic calls, it would make little sense do so.)
The screenshot below shows the outgoing call tree rooted at f
. The
tree has been expanded to show a path from f
to the String
method
of fmt.Stringer
through the guts of fmt.Sprint:
Caveats:
- In some cases dynamic function calls are (erroneously) included in the output; see golang/go#68153.
Client support:
- VS Code:
Show Call Hierarchy
menu item (⌥⇧H
) opens Call hierarchy view (note: docs refer to C++ but the idea is the same for Go). - Emacs + eglot: Not standard; install with
(package-vc-install "https://github.com/dolmens/eglot-hierarchy")
. UseM-x eglot-hierarchy-call-hierarchy
to show the direct incoming calls to the selected function; use a prefix argument (C-u
) to show the direct outgoing calls. There is no way to expand the tree. - CLI:
gopls call_hierarchy file.go:#offset
shows outgoing and incoming calls.