proposal (ST1024): Add a check for redundant package aliases in import blocks

[adamroyjones]

This pull request contains a (draft) working implementation of a proposal. There's a section ("Notes") that identifies an issue with this branch and raises a question about my implementation.

Description

Suppose that:

• there were a package example.com/foo/bar whose package name were bar, and
• that this package contained an export Bar of type func(string).

Then

package main

import (
	bar "example.com/foo/bar"
)

func main() {
	bar.Bar("Hello, world!")
}

contains some unhelpful redundancy: the package alias, bar, adds nothing.

This branch adds a (proposed) stylistic check, ST1024, that should catch these kinds of cases.

An exception is carved out for those cases where the last component of the package path differs from the package name. An example of this is github.com/google/gofuzz whose package name is fuzz, not gofuzz.

A full working example

For example, the below triggers the proposed check.

// go.mod
module example.com

go 1.22.0

// main.go
package main

import (
	foo "example.com/foo"
)

func main() {
	foo.Foo("hello, world!")
}

// foo/foo.go
package foo

import (
	"fmt"
)

func Foo(s string) {
	fmt.Printf("foo.Foo: %s\n", s)
}

Notes

Firstly, this is adapted from mvdan/gofumpt#296, where the impact on performance and the change of scope ruled it out.

Secondly, I created a failing test on this branch. After scratching my head for a little while I'm not sure how to resolve it. The packages.Load call of example.com/samename returns a *package.Package with an Errors field that contains

no required module provides package example.com/samename; to add it:
	go get example.com/samename

I'm guessing it's because of

go-tools/analysis/lint/testutil/util.go

Line 119 in a367d57

Env: append(os.Environ(), "GOPATH="+testdata, "GO111MODULE=off", "GOPROXY=off"),

but I'm not sure what to do. The check works in my local testing with modules.

Finally, I don't know if the package data are already somehow accessible (that is, whether these calls to packages.Load are wasteful). I'm a little at-sea in this codebase—at least for now.

[adamroyjones]

@dominikh: As it's been 6 months, I'll close this. If it sparks any interest in the future, let me know and I can see about reviving things.

[alexandear]

@adamroyjones This check is present in the revive linter via the redundant-import-alias rule.

[adamroyjones]

@alexandear: I wasn't aware of revive—thank you!