goderive
A Go code generator that automatically derives and maintains mundane functions like equality checks, deep copies, and functional operations from your types.
Overview
Derives and generates mundane golang functions that you do not want to maintain yourself
Use Cases
Not Ideal For
- Projects heavily utilizing Go 1.18+ generics for collection operations
- Teams preferring minimal build tooling and zero code generation steps
- Codebases requiring highly optimized, hand-written functions for performance-critical sections
Pros & Cons
Pros
Parses Go code to detect unimplemented functions with 'derive' prefixes and generates accurate implementations, as shown for struct equality with pointers and nested conditionals.
Generates functions like deriveEqual and deriveDeepCopy that work recursively on complex types, including pointers and nested structs, ensuring thorough coverage without manual updates.
Provides derived functions for fmap, compose, and traverse, enabling functional patterns in Go, as detailed in the functional examples section of the README.
Regenerates functions when underlying types change, keeping derived implementations in sync with data structures and reducing maintenance errors from manual updates.
Cons
Many collection operations like deriveSort and deriveKeys are deprecated in favor of Go's generics, reducing the tool's relevance for new code and signaling obsolescence in parts of its feature set.
Requires running goderive as a separate step (e.g., 'goderive ./...') or via go generate, adding complexity to development workflows and CI/CD pipelines compared to pure Go code.
Can produce verbose and potentially inefficient code, such as the nested conditionals in the deriveEqual example, which might not match the performance or readability of hand-optimized implementations.
Frequently Asked Questions
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