In Go, how to import function directly, without need to prefix with the package name when I call it?

Question

In the Go programming language, why after importing a package do I still have to prefix a method within that package with the package name?

i.e.

import "io/ioutil"  func main() {      content, err = iotuil.ReadFile("somefile.txt")     // etc.. } 

Isn't this redundant? In Java, for example, you can do things like importing Files.readAllLines etc without having Files imported.

Answer 1

I guess this doesn't really answer your question, but if you want, you can actually call the methods without explicitly stating the package - just import with a . in front of the names (but this is not recommended; see below):

package main  import (   . "fmt"   . "io/ioutil" )  func main () {   content, err := ReadFile("testfile")   if err != nil {     Println("Errors")   }   Println("My file:\n", string(content)) } 

Note @jimt's comment below - this practice is not advised outside of tests as it could cause name conflicts with future releases. Also, definitely agree with @DavidGrayson's point of being nicer to read/see where things come from.