This page documents gopls features for navigating your source code.
The LSP textDocument/definition request returns the location of the declaration of the symbol under the cursor. Most editors provide a command to navigate directly to that location.
A definition query also works in these unexpected places:
go:linkname directive, it returns the location of that symbol's declaration.hover) the location of the linked symbol.go:embed directive, it returns the location of the embedded file.func with no body), it returns the location of the assembly implementation, if any,Client support:
F12 or ⌘-click). If the cursor is already at the declaration, the request is instead interpreted as “Go to References”.M-x xref-find-definitions.gopls definition file.go:#offsetThe LSP textDocument/references request returns the locations of all identifiers that refer to the symbol under the cursor.
The references algorithm handles various parts of syntax as follows:
int or append, as they are presumed too numerous to be of interest.T in a struct type such as struct{T} is unique in Go in that it is both a reference (to a type) and a definition (of a field). The references operation reports only the references to it as a field. To find references to the type, jump to the type declararation first.Be aware that a references query returns information only about the build configuration used to analyze the selected file, so if you ask for the references to a symbol defined in foo_windows.go, the result will never include the file bar_linux.go, even if that file refers to a symbol of the same name; see golang/go#65755.
Clients can request that the the declaration be included among the references; most do.
Client support:
Go to References to quickly “peek” at the references, or Find all References to open the references panel.xref package: use M-x xref-find-references.gopls references file.go:#offsetThe LSP textDocument/implementation request queries the “implements” relation between interfaces and concrete types:
Only non-trivial interfaces are considered; no implementations are reported for type any.
Within the same package, all matching types/methods are reported. However, across packages, only exported package-level types and their methods are reported, so local types (whether interfaces, or struct types with methods due to embedding) may be missing from the results.
Generic types are currently not fully supported; see golang/go#59224.
Client support:
⌘F12).M-x eglot-find-implementation.gopls implementation file.go:#offsetThe LSP textDocument/typeDefinition request returns the location of the type of the selected symbol.
For example, if the selection is the name buf of a local variable of type *bytes.Buffer, a typeDefinition query will return the location of the type bytes.Buffer. Clients typically navigate to that location.
Type constructors such as pointer, array, slice, channel, and map are stripped off the selected type in the search for a named type. For example, if x is of type chan []*T, the reported type definition will be that of T. Similarly, if the symbol‘s type is a function with one “interesting” (named, non-error) result type, the function’s result type is used.
Gopls currently requires that a typeDefinition query be applied to a symbol, not to an arbitrary expression; see golang/go#67890 for potential extensions of this functionality.
Client support:
M-x eglot-find-typeDefinition.The textDocument/documentSymbol LSP query reports the list of top-level declarations in this file. Clients may use this information to present an overview of the file, and an index for faster navigation.
Gopls responds with the DocumentSymbol type if the client indicates hierarchicalDocumentSymbolSupport; otherwise it returns a SymbolInformation.
Client support:
M-x imenu to jump to a symbol.gopls links file.goThe workspace/symbol LSP query searches an index of all the symbols in the workspace.
The default symbol matching algorithm (fastFuzzy), inspired by the popular fuzzy matcher FZF, attempts a variety of inexact matches to correct for misspellings or abbreviations in your query. For example, it considers DocSym a match for DocumentSymbol.
Settings:
symbolMatcher setting controls the algorithm used for symbol matching.symbolStyle setting controls how symbols are qualified in symbol responses.symbolScope setting determines the scope of the query.directoryFilters setting specifies directories to be excluded from the search.Client support:
@ prefix to search within the file or a # prefix to search throughout the workspace.)M-x xref-find-apropos to show symbols that match a search term.gopls links file.goThe textDocument/selectionRange LSP query returns information about the lexical extent of each piece of syntax enclosing the current selection. Clients may use it to provide an operation to expand the selection to successively larger expressions.
Client support:
⌘⇧^→ to expand the selection or ⌘⇧^← to contract it again; watch this video.M-x eglot-expand-selection defined in this configuration snippet.The LSP CallHierarchy mechanism consists of three queries that together enable clients to present a hierarchical view of a portion of the static call graph:
textDocument/prepareCallHierarchy returns a list of items for a given position, each representing a named function or method enclosing the position;callHierarchyItem/incomingCalls returns the set of call sites that call the selected item; andcallHierarchy/outgoingCalls returns the set of functions called by the selected item.Invoke the command while selecting the name in a function declaration.
Dynamic calls are not included, because it is not analytically practical to detect them. So, beware that the results may not be exhaustive, and perform a References query if necessary.
The hierarchy does not consider a nested function distinct from its enclosing named function. (Without the ability to detect dynamic calls, it would make little sense do so.)
The screenshot below shows the outgoing call tree rooted at f. The tree has been expanded to show a path from f to the String method of fmt.Stringer through the guts of fmt.Sprint:
Caveats:
Client support:
Show Call Hierarchy menu item (⌥⇧H) opens Call hierarchy view (note: docs refer to C++ but the idea is the same for Go).(package-vc-install "https://github.com/dolmens/eglot-hierarchy"). Use M-x eglot-hierarchy-call-hierarchy to show the direct incoming calls to the selected function; use a prefix argument (C-u) to show the direct outgoing calls. There is no way to expand the tree.gopls call_hierarchy file.go:#offset shows outgoing and incoming calls.