tlin: Lint for gno
Advance Linter for go-like grammar languages.

Introduction
tlin is an linter designed for both Go and gno programming languages. It leverages the functionality of golangci-lint as its main linting engine, providing powerful code analysis for go-like grammar languages.
Inspired by Rust's clippy, tlin aims to provide additional code improvement suggestions beyond the default golangci-lint rules.
Features
- Support for Go (.go) and Gno (.gno) files
- Ability to add custom lint rules
- Additional code improvement suggestion, such as detecting unnecessary code
- Auto-fixing for some lint rules (🚧 WIP)
- Cyclomatic complexity analysis
Installation
- Requirements:
- Go: 1.22 or higher
- latest version of gno
To install tlin CLI, follow these steps:
- Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/gnoswap-labs/tlin
- Move to the cloned directory
cd tlin
- Install the CLI
go install ./cmd/tlin
that's it! You can now use the tlin
command in your terminal.
Usage
tlin <path>
Replace <path>
with the file or directory path you want to analyze.
To check the current directory, run:
tlin .
Adding Custom Lint Rules
tlin allows addition of custom lint rules beyond the default golangci-lint rules. To add a new lint rule, follow these steps:
⚠️ Must update relevant tests if you have added a new rule or formatter.
- Implement the
LintRule
interface for your new rule:
type NewRule struct{}
func (r *NewRule) Check(filename string) ([]Issue, error) {
// Implement your lint rule logic here
// return a slice of Issues and any error encountered
}
- Register your new rule in the
registerDefaultRules
method of the Engine
struct in internal/engine.go
:
func (e *Engine) registerDefaultRules() {
e.rules = append(e.rules,
&GolangciLintRule{},
// ...
&NewRule{}, // Add your new rule here
)
}
-
(Optional) if your rule requires special formatting, create a new formatter in the formatter
package:
a. Create a new file (e.g., formatter/new_rule.go
).
b. Implement the IssueFormatter
interface for your new rule:
type NewRuleFormatter struct{}
func (f *NewRuleFormatter) Format(
issue lints.Issue,
snippet *internal.SourceCode,
) string {
// Implement formatting logic for new rule here.
}
c. Add the new formatter to the GetFormatter
function in formatter/fmt.go
.
func GetFormatter(rule string) IssueFormatter {
switch rule {
// ...
case "new_rule": // Add your new rule here
return &NewRuleFormatter{}
default:
return &DefaultFormatter{}
}
}
By following these steps, you can add new lint rules and ensure they are properly formatted when displayed in the CLI.
Cyclomatic Complexity Analysis
tlin includes a feature to analyze the cyclomatic complexity of your code. This feature is a quantitative measure of the number of linearly independent paths through a program's source code. It's often used to indicate the complexity of a program and can be used to estimate the effort required to test or maintain a function or method.
High cyclomatic complexity can make code harder to understand and maintain. Generally, lower cyclomatic complexity is better.
Running Cyclomatic Complexity Analysis
To run this analysis, use the -cyclo
flag along with an optional -threshold
flag to set the complexity threshold. The default threshold is 10.
tlin -cyclo -threshold <threshold> <path>
For example:
tlin -cyclo -threshold 15 .
This command will analyze all .go
and .gno
files in the current directory and its subdirectories, reporting functions with a complexity higher than 15.
The output will show:
- The function name and its location
- The cyclomatic complexity score
Use this feature to identify complex parts of your codebase that might benefit from refactoring.
Contributing
We welcome all forms of contributions, including bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests. Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.
Credits
License
This project is distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE
for more information.