This is a circular dependency issue. Golang programs must be acyclic. In Golang cyclic imports are not allowed (That is its import graph must not contain any loops)
Lets say your project go-circular-dependency have 2 packages "package one" & it has "one.go" & "package two" & it has "two.go" So your project structure is as follows
+--go-circular-dependency
+--one
+-one.go
+--two
+-two.go
This issue occurs when you try to do something like following.
Step 1 - In one.go you import package two (Following is one.go)
package one
import (
"go-circular-dependency/two"
)
//AddOne is
func AddOne() int {
a := two.Multiplier()
return a + 1
}
Step 2 - In two.go you import package one (Following is two.go)
package two
import (
"fmt"
"go-circular-dependency/one"
)
//Multiplier is going to be used in package one
func Multiplier() int {
return 2
}
//Total is
func Total() {
//import AddOne from "package one"
x := one.AddOne()
fmt.Println(x)
}
In Step 2, you will receive an error "can't load package: import cycle not allowed"
(This is called "Circular Dependency" error)
Technically speaking this is bad design decision and you should avoid this as much as possible, but you can "Break Circular Dependencies via implicit interfaces" (I personally don't recommend, and highly discourage this practise, because by design Go programs must be acyclic)
Try to keep your import dependency shallow. When the dependency graph becomes deeper (i.e package x imports y, y imports z, z imports x) then circular dependencies become more likely.
Sometimes code repetition is not bad idea, which is exactly opposite of DRY (don't repeat yourself)
So in Step 2 that is in two.go you should not import package one. Instead in two.go you should actually replicate the functionality of AddOne() written in one.go as follows.
package two
import (
"fmt"
)
//Multiplier is going to be used in package one
func Multiplier() int {
return 2
}
//Total is
func Total() {
// x := one.AddOne()
x := Multiplier() + 1
fmt.Println(x)
}
