---
name: "golang-guru"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "golang-golang-x-tools"
version: "1:0.5.0+ds-1"
release: "Debian 12 (Bookworm)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/golang-guru"
---

# golang-guru(1)

Go source code guru

## NAME

golang-guru - Go source code guru

## SYNOPSIS

**golang-guru** \[ *flag ...* \] mode position

## DESCRIPTION

The mode argument determines the query to perform:

- **callees**

  show possible targets of selected function call

- **callers**

  show possible callers of selected function

- **callstack**

  show path from callgraph root to selected function

- **definition**

  show declaration of selected identifier

- **describe**

  describe selected syntax: definition, methods, etc

- **freevars**

  show free variables of selection

- **implements**

  show 'implements' relation for selected type or method

- **peers**

  show send/receive corresponding to selected channel op

- **pointsto**

  show variables the selected pointer may point to

- **referrers**

  show all refs to entity denoted by selected identifier

- **what**

  show basic information about the selected syntax node

- **whicherrs**

  show possible values of the selected error variable

The position argument specifies the filename and byte offset (or range) of the syntax element to query.  For example:

```
	foo.go:#123,#128
	bar.go:#123
```

The user manual is available here:  http://golang.org/s/using-guru

## OPTIONS

- **-cpuprofile**

  Write CPU profile to file.

- **-format** *format*

  Output format:

  **plain** An editor-friendly format in which every line of output is of the form "pos: text", where pos is "-" if unknown. This is the default.

  **json** Structured data in JSON syntax.

  **xml** Structured data in XML syntax.

- **-modified**

  Read archive of modified files from standard input.

  Files in this archive will be used in preference to those in the file system. In this way, a text editor may supply guru with the contents of its unsaved buffers.  Each archive entry consists of the file name, a newline, the decimal file size, another newline, and the contents of the file.

- **-ptalog** *file*

  Write points-to analysis log to file.

- **-reflect**

  Analyze reflection soundly (slow).

- **-scope** *packages*

  Comma-separated list of packages the analysis should be limited to. Its value is a comma-separated list of patterns of these forms:

  ```
  	golang.org/x/tools/cmd/guru	# a single package
  	golang.org/x/tools/...		# all packages beneath dir
  	...				# the entire workspace.
  A pattern preceded by '-' is negative, so the scope
  	encoding/...,-encoding/xml
  ```

  matches all encoding packages except encoding/xml.

- **-tags** *build\_tags*

  A list of build tags to consider satisfied during the build. For more information about build tags, see the description of build constraints in the documentation for the go/build package (default \<tagsFlag\>).

## EXAMPLES

Describe the syntax at offset 530 in this file (an import spec):

```
      golang-guru describe src/golang.org/x/tools/cmd/guru/main.go:#530
```

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Michael Stapelberg \<stapelberg@debian.org\>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).