go/godoc/static/analysis/help.html

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<p>
  When invoked with the <code>-analysis</code> flag, godoc performs
  static analysis on the Go packages it indexes and displays the
  results in the source and package views.  This document provides a
  brief tour of these features.
</p>
<p>
  The current status of the analysis features is that of a technology
  preview; there are many problems and user-interface difficulties
  which will be addressed in due course.  Some known problems are
  mentioned in passing, accompanied by a warning triangle, <span
  style='font-size:120%; color:darkred; background-color:
  yellow'>⚠</span>.

  Nonetheless, godoc's static analysis may be immediately useful today
  for small-to-medium sized Go corpora, and it contains several
  advances over the state of the art in code browsing.
</p>

<h2>Type analysis features</h2>
<p>
  <code>godoc -analysis=type</code> performs static checking similar
  to that done by a compiler: it detects ill-formed programs, resolves
  each identifier to the entity it denotes, computes the type of each
  expression and the method set of each type, and determines which
  types are assignable to each interface type.

  <b>Type analysis</b> is relatively quick, requiring just a few seconds for
  the >200 packages of the standard library, for example.
</p>

<h3>Compiler errors</h3>
<p>
  If any source file contains a compilation error, the source view
  will highlight the errant location in red.  Hovering over it
  displays the error message.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='811' src='error1.png'><br/>
<p>
  <span class='err'>⚠</span> The mark-up for compilation errors may
  cause duplication of portions of the input.
</p>

<h3>Identifier resolution</h3>
<p>
  In the source view, every referring identifier is annotated with
  information about the language entity it refers to: a package,
  constant, variable, type, function or statement label.

  Hovering over the identifier reveals the entity's kind and type
  (e.g. <code>var x int</code> or <code>func f
  func(int) string</code>).
</p>
<img class="ss" width='652' src='ident-field.png'><br/>
<br/>
<img class="ss" width='652' src='ident-func.png'>
<p>
  Clicking the link takes you to the entity's definition.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='652' src='ident-def.png'><br/>

<h3>Type information: size/alignment, method set, interfaces</h3>
<p>
  Clicking on the identifier that defines a named type causes a panel
  to appear, displaying information about the named type, including
  its size and alignment in bytes, its <a href='http://golang.org/ref/spec#Method_sets'>method set</a>, and its
  <i>implements</i> relation: the set of types T that are assignable to
  or from this type U where at least one of T or U is an interface.

  This example shows information about <code>net/rpc.methodType</code>.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='470' src='typeinfo-src.png'>
<p>
  The method set includes not only the declared methods of the type,
  but also any methods "promoted" from anonymous fields of structs,
  such as <code>sync.Mutex</code> in this example.

  In addition, the receiver type is displayed as <code>*T</code> or
  <code>T</code> depending on whether it requires the address or just
  a copy of the receiver value.
</p>
<p>
  The method set and <i>implements</i> relation are also available
  via the package view.
</p>
<img class="ss dotted" width='716' src='typeinfo-pkg.png'>

<h2>Pointer analysis features</h2>
<p>
  <code>godoc -analysis=pointer</code> performs a precise
  whole-program <b>pointer analysis</b>.  In other words, it
  approximates the set of memory locations to which each
  reference&mdash;not just vars of kind <code>*T</code>, but also
  <code>[]T</code>, <code>func</code>, <code>map</code>,
  <code>chan</code>, and <code>interface</code>&mdash;may refer.  This
  information reveals the possible destinations of each dynamic call
  (via a <code>func</code> variable or interface method), and the
  relationship between send and receive operations on the same
  channel.
</p>
<p>
  <span class='err'>⚠</span> Pointer analysis is currently quite slow,
  taking around two minutes for the standard library.  This will
  improve markedly with the planned addition of a constraint
  optimizer.
</p>

<h3>Call graph navigation</h3>
<p>
  When pointer analysis is complete, the source view annotates the
  code with <b>callers</b> and <b>callees</b> information: callers
  information is associated with the <code>func</code> keyword that
  declares a function, and callees information is associated with the
  open paren '<span style="color: dark-blue"><code>(</code></span>' of
  a function call.
</p>
<p>
  In this example, hovering over the declaration of the
  <code>rot13</code> function (defined in in strings/strings.test.go)
  reveals that it is called in exactly one place.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='612' src='callers1.png'>
<p>
  Clicking the link navigates to the sole caller.  (If there were
  multiple callers, a list of choices would be displayed first.)
</p>
<img class="ss" width='680' src='callers2.png'>
<p>
  Notice that hovering over this call reveals that there are 19
  possible callees at this site, of which our <code>rot13</code>
  function was just one: this is a dynamic call through a variable of
  type <code>func(rune) rune</code>.

  Clicking on the call brings up the list of all 19 potential callees,
  shown truncated.  Many of them are anonymous functions.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='564' src='call3.png'>
<p>
  Pointer analysis gives a very precise approximation of the call
  graph compared to type-based techniques.

  As a case in point, the next example shows the dynamic call inside
  the <code>testing</code> package responsible for calling all
  user-defined functions named <code>Example<i>XYZ</i></code>.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='361' src='call-eg.png'>
<p>
  Recall that all such functions have type <code>func()</code>,
  i.e. no arguments and no results.  A type-based approximation could
  only conclude that this call might dispatch to any function matching
  that type&mdash;and these are very numerous in most
  programs&mdash;but pointer analysis can track the flow of specific
  <code>func</code> values through the testing package.

  As an indication of its precision, the result contains only
  functions whose name starts with <code>Example</code>.
</p>

<h3>Intra-package call graph</h3>
<p>
  The same call graph information is presented in a very different way
  in the package view.  For each package, an interactive tree view
  allows exploration of the call graph as it relates to just that
  package; all functions from other packages are elided.

  The roots of the tree are the external entry points of the package:
  not only its exported functions, but also any unexported or
  anonymous functions that are called (dynamically) from outside the
  package.
</p>
<p>
  This example shows the entry points of the
  <code>path/filepath</code> package, with the call graph for
  <code>Glob</code> expanded several levels
</p>
<img class="ss dotted" width='501' src='ipcg-pkg.png'>
<p>
  Notice that the nodes for Glob and Join appear multiple times: the
  tree is a partial unrolling of a cyclic graph; the full unrolling
  is in general infinite.
</p>
<p>
  For each function documented in the package view, another
  interactive tree view allows exploration of the same graph starting
  at that function.

  This is a portion of the internal graph of
  <code>net/http.ListenAndServe</code>.
</p>
<img class="ss dotted" width='455' src='ipcg-func.png'>

<h3>Channel peers (send ↔ receive)</h3>
<p>
  Because concurrent Go programs use channels to pass not just values
  but also control between different goroutines, it is natural when
  reading Go code to want to navigate from a channel send to the
  corresponding receive so as to understand the sequence of events.
</p>
<p>
  Godoc annotates every channel operation&mdash;make, send, range,
  receive, close&mdash;with a link to a panel displaying information
  about other operations that might alias the same channel.
</p>
<p>
  This example, from the tests of <code>net/http</code>, shows a send
  operation on a <code>chan bool</code>.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='811' src='chan1.png'>
<p>
  Clicking on the <code>&lt;-</code> send operator reveals that this
  channel is made at a unique location (line 332) and that there are
  three receive operations that might read this value.

  It hardly needs pointing out that some channel element types are
  very widely used (e.g. struct{}, bool, int, interface{}) and that a
  typical Go program might contain dozens of receive operations on a
  value of type <code>chan bool</code>; yet the pointer analysis is
  able to distinguish operations on channels at a much finer precision
  than based on their type alone.
</p>
<p>
  Notice also that the send occurs in a different (anonymous) function
  from the outer one containing the <code>make</code> and the receive
  operations.
</p>
<p>
  Here's another example of send on a different <code>chan
  bool</code>, also in package <code>net/http</code>:
</p>
<img class="ss" width='774' src='chan2a.png'>
<p>
  The analysis finds just one receive operation that might receive
  from this channel, in the test for this feature.
</p>
<img class="ss" width='737' src='chan2b.png'>

<h2>Known issues</h2>
<p>
  <span class='err'>⚠</span> There is no UI indication of the state of
  the analysis (pending, complete, failed) during warm-up.</br>

  <span class='err'>⚠</span> All analysis results pertain to exactly
  one configuration (e.g. amd64 linux).  Files that are conditionally
  compiled based on different platforms or build tags are not visible
  to the analysis.</br>

  <span class='err'>⚠</span> Files that <code>import "C"</code> require
  preprocessing by the cgo tool.  The file offsets after preprocessing
  do not align with the unpreprocessed file, so markup is misaligned.<br/>

  <span class='err'>⚠</span> Files are not periodically re-analyzed.
  If the files change underneath the running server, the displayed
  markup is misaligned.</br>

  <span class='err'>⚠</span> Additional issues are listed at <a href='https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/godoc/analysis/README?repo=tools'>go.tools/godoc/analysis/README</a>.</br>
</p>