Assignment To Receiver
ID |
go.assignment_to_receiver |
Severity |
low |
Remediation Complexity |
simple |
Remediation Risk |
low |
Remediation Effort |
low |
Resource |
Reliability |
Language |
Go |
Tags |
reliability |
Description
Reports an assignment whose left-hand side is a method’s value receiver, for example
func (r T) m() { r = X }.
Rationale
A value receiver is a copy, so reassigning it changes nothing the caller can observe — the
statement is effectively dead. It usually signals a misplaced mutation that was meant to update
a field (r.field = X) or a method that should have declared a pointer receiver. Writing
through a pointer receiver (p.field = X) is a real, caller-visible mutation and is not flagged.
// Bad
func (r T) reset() { r = T{} } // FLAW
// Good
func (p *T) reset() { p.x = 0 } // OK — visible to the callerRemediation
Use a pointer receiver (func (r *T) m()) when the method must mutate the value, or assign the
intended field through the receiver instead of replacing the receiver itself.