grafana/contribute/style-guides/backend.md

# Backend style guide

Grafana's backend has been developed for a long time with a mix of code styles. This guide explains how we want to write Go code in the future.

Unless stated otherwise, use the guidelines listed in the following articles:

- [Effective Go](https://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html)
- [Code Review Comments](https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/CodeReviewComments)
- [Go: Best Practices for Production Environments](http://peter.bourgon.org/go-in-production/#formatting-and-style)

## Linting and formatting

To ensure consistency across the Go codebase, we require all code to pass a number of linter checks.

We use the standard following linters:

- [gofmt](https://golang.org/cmd/gofmt/)
- [golint](https://github.com/golang/lint)
- [go vet](https://golang.org/cmd/vet/)

In addition to the standard linters, we also use:

- [revive](https://revive.run/) with a [custom config](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/master/conf/revive.toml)
- [GolangCI-Lint](https://github.com/golangci/golangci-lint)
- [gosec](https://github.com/securego/gosec)

To run all linters, use the `lint-go` Makefile target:

```bash
make lint-go
```

## Testing

We value clean and readable code, that is loosely coupled and covered by unit tests. This makes it easier to collaborate and maintain the code.

Tests must use the standard library, `testing`. For assertions, prefer using [testify](https://github.com/stretchr/testify).

The majority of our tests uses [GoConvey](http://goconvey.co/) but that's something we want to avoid going forward.

In the `sqlstore` package we do database operations in tests and while some might say that's not suited for unit tests. We think they are fast enough and provide a lot of value.

### Assertions

Use respectively [`assert.*`](https://github.com/stretchr/testify#assert-package) functions to make assertions that 
should _not_ halt the test ("soft checks") and [`require.*`](https://github.com/stretchr/testify#require-package) 
functions to make assertions that _should_ halt the test ("hard checks"). Typically you want to use the latter type of
check to assert that errors have or have not happened, since continuing the test after such an assertion fails is
chaotic (the system under test will be in an undefined state) and you'll often have segfaults in practice.

### Sub-tests

Use [`t.Run`](https://golang.org/pkg/testing/#T.Run) to group sub-test cases, since it allows common setup and teardown
code, plus lets you run each test case in isolation when debugging. Don't use `t.Run` to e.g. group assertions.

### Cleanup

Use [`t.Cleanup`](https://golang.org/pkg/testing/#T.Cleanup) to clean up resources in tests. It's a less fragile choice than `defer`, since it's independent of which
function you call it in. It will always execute after the test is over in reverse call order (last `t.Cleanup` first, same as `defer`).

## Globals

As a general rule of thumb, avoid using global variables, since they make the code difficult to maintain and reason
about, and to write tests for. The Grafana codebase currently does use a lot of global variables, especially when
it comes to configuration, but that is a problem we're trying to solve.

## Pointers

In general, use value types and only reach for pointers when there's a real need. The reason being that pointers
increase the risk of bugs, since a pointer can be nil and dereferencing a nil pointer leads to a panic (AKA segfault).
Valid reasons to use a pointer include (but not necessarily limited to):

* You might need to pass a modifiable argument to a function
* Copying an object might incur a performance hit (benchmark to check your assumptions, copying is often faster than
  allocating heap memory)
* You might *need* `nil` to tell if a variable isn't set, although usually it's better to use the type's zero
  value to tell instead

## Database

In database related code, we follow certain patterns.

### Foreign keys

While they can be useful, we don't generally use foreign key constraints in Grafana, for historical and
technical reasons. See this [comment](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/issues/3269#issuecomment-383328548) by Torkel 
for context.

### Unique columns

If a column, or column combination, should be unique, add a corresponding uniqueness constraint through a migration.

## JSON

The simplejson package is used a lot throughout the backend codebase, but it's legacy, so if at all possible
avoid using it in new code. Use [json-iterator](https://github.com/json-iterator/go) instead, which is a more performant 
drop-in alternative to the standard [encoding/json](https://golang.org/pkg/encoding/json/) package. While encoding/json
is a fine choice, profiling shows that json-iterator may be 3-4 times more efficient for encoding. We haven't profiled
its parsing performance yet, but according to json-iterator's own benchmarks, it appears even more superior in this
department.