Add a lint for struct constructors

[elauffenburger]

Your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I've run into runtime bugs when adding a new field to a "service-like" struct (a FooService or something like that), but then I find out someone's instantiating the struct without a constructor so some code somewhere breaks at runtime because of a nil pointer!

Describe the solution you'd like.

I'd love to see two linters created:

• structs that should have a ctor, which don't have a ctor
• structs that do have a ctor, but which are instantiated without using the ctor

These linters would definitely want to take regexes that specify the types of structs that we consider to be lintable -- most structs don't have this problem since they're just data and we really don't even want a ctor for them.

Describe alternatives you've considered.

Pray our tests catch this stuff! 🙏

Additional context.

I've written these linters already (and they're useful for me), but I didn't want to create a PR without gauging interest first.

I'm new to this project, so thanks for your patience!

[boring-cyborg]

Hey, thank you for opening your first Issue ! 🙂 If you would like to contribute we have a guide for contributors.

[ldez]

Hello,

your linters seem really specific to your use case, I'm not sure there is a big demand for this type of linter.

My recommendations:

• open source your projects
• create 1 linter instead 2
• allow your linter to run as a plugin
• allow your linter to run as a binary

[elauffenburger]

Okay! Yep, make sense -- could I elaborate on this a bit more? Just to make it a bit more clear (because I do think this is a somewhat general pattern and tl;dr is for DI)!

This is totally contrived, but:

package metrics

struct Service {
  cfg     Config
  client  Client
}

func NewService(cfg Config, client Client) Service {
  return Service { cfg, client }
}

func SomethingSilly() {
  // All good here; this is just some data, so no need to use a ctor or anything.
  cfg := Config{}

  // Wait! I bypassed the ctor, so now I don't have the client set!
  svc := Service { cfg: cfg }
}

// ...

package foo

func DoTheThing() {
  // Wait! This definitely won't work!
  metricsSvc := metrics.Service{}
}

Does that illustrate this any better?

[ldez]

I understand your use case, but your linter will only be useful if all the structs follow the same name pattern.
If the structs don't follow a strict pattern, the configuration will be complex or will create a lot of false-positive/false-negative.

So I'm still thinking that is a specific use case.

But I don't represent the whole community, so we will see, with this issue, if there is some interest for this linter.

[ldez]

Also without the code, I cannot see what is the approach you implemented in your linter, and it's difficult to judge.

So I think that my recommendations can help:

• open source your projects
• create 1 linter instead 2
• allow your linter to run as a plugin
• allow your linter to run as a binary

[elauffenburger]

Okay! Nope, that makes sense -- thanks for taking a look. Feel free to close this if you feel that makes sense!