diff --git a/internal/lsp/protocol/printers.go b/internal/lsp/protocol/printers.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e658af96b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/lsp/protocol/printers.go
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+// Copyright 2018 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+// This file contains formatting functions for types that
+// are commonly printed in debugging information.
+// They are separated from their types and gathered here as
+// they are hand written and not generated from the spec.
+// They should not be relied on for programmatic use (their
+// results should never be parsed for instance) but are meant
+// for temporary debugging and error messages.
+
+package protocol
+
+import (
+	"fmt"
+)
+
+func (p Position) Format(f fmt.State, c rune) {
+	fmt.Fprintf(f, "%d", int(p.Line))
+	if p.Character >= 0 {
+		fmt.Fprintf(f, ":%d", int(p.Character))
+	}
+}
+
+func (r Range) Format(f fmt.State, c rune) {
+	switch {
+	case r.Start == r.End || r.End.Line < 0:
+		fmt.Fprintf(f, "%v", r.Start)
+	case r.End.Line == r.Start.Line:
+		fmt.Fprintf(f, "%v¦%d", r.Start, int(r.End.Character))
+	default:
+		fmt.Fprintf(f, "%v¦%v", r.Start, r.End)
+	}
+}
+
+func (l Location) Format(f fmt.State, c rune) {
+	fmt.Fprintf(f, "%s:%v", l.URI, l.Range)
+}