Feature request: check for alphabetical order

[twpayne]

Firstly, thank you for this excellent linter :) I use the same ordering as your linter checks in all my projects, and really appreciate having a tool that automatically checks it for me.

Would you consider adding an option to check that functions are declared in alphabetical order within their group (constructors, exported methods, non-exported methods)? I personally use alphabetical order as it is predictable and deterministic.

[manuelarte]

Hi @twpayne, first of all, thanks for your nice comment, it really motivates me to read comments like yours!

Regarding your question, as you can see in the final comment in the PR to add this linter, this linter is already quite opinionated, so I am not sure about the scope of adding that extra check of alphabetical order, making it even more opinionated.

[ldez]

It can be an option, but false by default.

[manuelarte]

It makes sense, then let me define the feature request.

So we would have 3 possible settings for this linter:

• constructor [true|false]
• struct-method [true|false]
• sort-alphabetically [true|false] (name to be defined, I'm horrible giving names)

And then let's imagine the following combinations:

constructor: true, struct-method: true, sort-alphabetically: true

That's the scenario @twpayne is describing, so in each group, the linter would check that the functions/methods are sorted alphabetically.

So something like:

type MyStruct struct {}

func NewMyStruct() MyStruct {
  return MyStruct{}
}

func NewAMyStruct() MyStruct { // this would fail, because this "constructor" needs to be declared before [NewMyStruct]
    return MyStruct{}
}

func (m MyStruct) hello() String {
  return "hello"
}

func (m MyStruct) bye() String { // this would fail because bye needs to be declared before hello
  return "bye"
}

func (m MyStruct) GoodMorning() String { // this would fail because [GoodMorning] needs to be declared before [hello] and before [bye]
  return "good morning"
}

But now, if we play with the settings, imagine that I have some settings active and some others not

constructor: false, struct-method: N/A, sort-alphabetically: true

In this scenario, the user does not want that the linter checks for the constructors.

type MyStruct struct {}

func NewMyStruct() MyStruct {
  return MyStruct{}
}

func NewAMyStruct() MyStruct { // should this fail? specifying that [NewAMyStruct] needs to be declared before [NewMyStruct]
    return MyStruct{}
}

...

constructor: N/A, struct-method: false, sort-alphabetically: true

e.g.

type MyStruct struct {}

...

func (m MyStruct) hello() String {
  return "hello"
}

func (m MyStruct) bye() String { // should this fail? specifying that needs to be declared before [hello]
  return "bye"
}

func (m MyStruct) GoodMorning() String { // should this fail? specifying that needs to be declared before [hello] but after [bye]
  return "good morning"
}

What are your thoughts @ldez @twpayne ?

IMHO, I think the sort-alphabetically check should only apply if the other feature(s) are active. So I only check if the constructors are sorted alphabetically, if both settings, constructor and sort-alphabetically.

[twpayne]

IMHO, I think the sort-alphabetically check should only apply if the other feature(s) are active. So I only check if the constructors are sorted alphabetically, if both settings, constructor and sort-alphabetically.

This makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for considering this!

[twpayne]

• sort-alphabetically [true|false] (name to be defined, I'm horrible giving names)

You could use alphabetical, which is a little shorter.

[twpayne]

Thank you very much!