Linter for field order in struct initialization

[begelundmuller]

Hello, do you know of a linter that will error if a struct is initialized with a different field order than the struct definition?

For example:

// Given this struct definition:
type Foobar struct {
  Foo int
  Bar int
}

// This should succeed:
var a = Foobar{
  Foo: 3,
  Bar: 14,
}

// But this should fail:
var b = Foobar{
  Bar: 14,
  Foo: 3,
}

[ldez]

Hello,

I don't think a linter exists for that as it's a pure "style" linter.

Can you explain the need behind this? Why the order is important for you?

[begelundmuller]

Hello @ldez, thank you for responding!

Yes it's definitely only a style/readability matter. Here are two reasons why it would be useful:

1. Struct fields are usually ordered in a meaningful way to improve code readability. For example, the fields in url.URL are roughly ordered by where they appear in the string representation of a URL. I find that using the same field order when initializing a struct similarly improves the readability of the initialization code.
2. When comparing a struct initialization to its type definition, having a consistent field order makes it easier to check if a specific field is set or not. This is particularly useful when auditing large options/config/request types (for example, git.CloneOptions or s3.GetObjectInput).