Go linter in VS code not working for packages across multiple files?

Question

I have installed the Go extension (version 0.11.4) in Visual Studio Code on MacOS:

However, I find that the linter does not 'pick up' functions defined in the same package, but in different files. For example, if I create in the same directory a file foo.go with

package foobar  import "fmt"  func main() {     fmt.Println(SayHello()) } 

and a file bar.go with

package foobar  func SayHello() string {     return "Hello, world!" } 

then in foo.go I get a linter error that SayHello is an undeclared name:

I've read about a similar issue here (https://github.com/golang/lint/issues/57), but since that issue is five years old I figured it might be fixed by now? Or does golint simply not work across multiple files?

Answer 1

[The original answer is outdated; here is up-to-date information provided by the vscode-go maintainers. The updated answer is now marked as "Recommended" in the Go collective]

The plugin has changed a lot since 2019.

• In 2021, Go Modules became the default which may have changed how the program is built and analyzed.
• The vscode-go plugin uses gopls as the language server by default. Note that in 2019, there were two different language servers and gopls was still in experimental mode.
• golint was deprecated.

If you still have a similar issue, it's likely that you are seeing a different problem.

Please check the followings:

• Do you have go.mod? Otherwise, initialize your working module and restart the language server or reload the window.
• Is the go.mod file in the root directory of your workspace? See gopls workspace setup guide for complex setup.
• Do you use build tags or other build constraints? Then see issue 29202. You may need to configure "go.buildTags" or "go.buildFlags".
• If you expect lint errors from linters like staticcheck, golangci-lint, ..., check "go.lintOnSave" is set to the right scope.

If you notice that restarting the language server ("Go: Restart Language Server" command) fixes your issue, that's a gopls bug. Please consider to file an issue in github.com/golang/vscode-go following the troubleshooting guide.

Otherwise, please open a new question with details.

----- Original answer -------

I faced same problem. I found that I got into this problem after enabling "Go language server" which is an experimental feature. I disabled it in VS code settings->Go Configuration and after that the problem went away.