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pkgnaming

About 291 words

Enforces package naming conventions to avoid stutter.

Category

Architecture

What It Checks

This analyzer detects package names that cause "stutter" when used with their exported symbols. Only exported package-level types and functions are checked: unexported and function-local names never appear behind the package qualifier, so they can't stutter.

Why It Matters

Package stutter is redundant and verbose:

user.UserService      // "user" appears twice
http.HTTPClient       // "http" appears twice
config.ConfigLoader   // "config" appears twice

Examples

Bad: Stutter

// In package user
package user

type UserService struct{}      // user.UserService stutters
type UserRepository struct{}   // user.UserRepository stutters
func NewUserService() *UserService {}  // user.NewUserService stutters

Good: No Stutter

// In package user
package user

type Service struct{}      // user.Service is clear
type Repository struct{}   // user.Repository is clear
func NewService() *Service {}  // user.NewService is clear

Bad: Package Name Repetition

// In package httputil
package httputil

type HTTPClient struct{}    // httputil.HTTPClient stutters on "HTTP"

Good: Clear Names

// In package httputil
package httputil

type Client struct{}        // httputil.Client is clear

Package Naming Guidelines

  1. Short, lowercase, no underscores

    Good: user, http, config
Bad: user_service, httpClient, Config

    Exception: External test packages (*_test) are allowed as this is Go's standard convention for black-box testing:

    Allowed: user_test (external test package for user)

  2. Singular, not plural

    Good: user (for package about users)
Bad: users

  3. Descriptive but concise

    Good: auth, storage, cache
Bad: authentication, datastorage, memorycache

Configuration

# .golint-sl.yaml
analyzers:
  pkgnaming: true  # enabled by default

When to Disable

  • Generated code with fixed names
  • Compatibility with external conventions
analyzers:
  pkgnaming: false

See Also