Unread Value

ID

go.unread_value

Severity

low

Remediation Complexity

trivial

Remediation Risk

low

Remediation Effort

low

Resource

Code Smell

Language

Go

Tags

code-style, suspicious

Description

Reports a dead store: a value assigned to a local variable that is overwritten by the very next statement without being read in between (x = a; x = b).

Rationale

The first assignment computes a value that nothing ever observes — it is wasted work and almost always a bug: a forgotten read, the wrong variable on the left, or a leftover line from edited code. When the second write reads the variable on its right-hand side (x = x + 1), the first value is observed and the store is live, so that case is not reported.

// Bad
x = 1            // FLAW — overwritten before being read
x = 2

// Good
x = 1
fmt.Println(x)   // OK — read before the next write
x = 2

x = x + 1        // OK — the second write reads x first
x = x * 2

Remediation

Remove the dead store, or insert the read that was intended between the two assignments.

References