Go fmt

External

• https://pkg.go.dev/cmd/gofmt

Internal

• go Tool
• Go Source Code Formatting
• Go Style

Overview

gofmt is a program that operates at source file level.

go fmt operates at package level rather than source file level. go fmt delegates to gofmt, and it is equivalent to:

gofmt -l -w <file>

Both tools format source code files, by applying a predetermined layout, which includes a standard style of indentation and vertical alignment, and retains and if necessary reformats comments. One counterintuitive fact is that it uses the tab character for indentation. This is uncommon.

Rob Pike: "gofmt style is no one's favorite, yet gofmt is everyone's favorite".