go-bitflags

Bitflags is a tool to automate the creation of methods that satisfy the Bitflags interface. Given the name of a (signed or unsigned) integer type T that has constants defined, bitflags will create a new self-contained Go source file implementing

func (t T) Name() string

func (t T) String() string

func (t T) Contains(f T) bool

func (t T) <Flag Name>() bool

The file is created in the same package and directory as the package that defines T. It has helpful defaults designed for use with go generate.

Installation

# Go 1.18+
go install github.com/flier/go-bitflags/cmd/bitflags@latest

# Go version < 1.18
go get -u github.com/flier/go-bitflags/cmd/bitflags@latest

Usage

Bitflags works best with constants that are consecutive values such as created using iota, but creates good code regardless. In the future it might also provide custom support for constant sets that are bit patterns.

For example, given this snippet,

package painkiller

type Pill int

const (
    Placebo Pill = 1 << iota
    Aspirin
    Ibuprofen
    Paracetamol
    Acetaminophen = Paracetamol
)

running this command

bitflags -type=Pill

in the same directory will create the file pill_bitflags.go, in package painkiller, containing a definition

// Name of a single flag bit, e.g. Placebo
func (Pill) Name() string

// All flag bits that have been set, such as Placebo|Ibuprofen
func (Pill) String() string

// Whether the flag bit is set
func (Pill) Contains(Pill) bool

func (Pill) Placebo() bool
func (Pill) Aspirin() bool
func (Pill) Ibuprofen() bool
func (Pill) Paracetamol() bool
func (Pill) Acetaminophen() bool

That method will translate the value of a Pill constant to the string representation of the respective constant name, so that the call fmt.Print(painkiller.Aspirin|painkiller.Paracetamol) will print the string Aspirin|Paracetamol.

Typically this process would be run using go generate, like this:

//go:generate bitflags --type=Pill

If multiple constants have the same value, the lexically first matching name will be used (in the example, Acetaminophen will print as "Paracetamol").

With no arguments, it processes the package in the current directory. Otherwise, the arguments must name a single directory holding a Go package or a set of Go source files that represent a single Go package.

The --type flag accepts a comma-separated list of types so a single run can generate methods for multiple types. The default output file is t_bitflags.go, where t is the lower-cased name of the first type listed. It can be overridden with the -output flag.

The --line-comment flag tells bitflags to generate the text of any line comment, trimmed of leading spaces, instead of the constant name. For instance, if the constants above had a Pill prefix, one could write

PillAspirin // Aspirin

to suppress it in the output.

The --trim-prefix flag tell bitflags to trim the 'prefix' from the generated constant names.

The --tag flag tells bitflags the list of build tags to apply.

Golang version

bitflags is currently compatible with golang version from 1.16+.

Credits

The design of Bitflags was inspired by the Stringer and bitflags crate, thanks to their great work.

License

This project is licensed under either of Apache-2.0 License (LICENSE-APACHE) or MIT license (LICENSE-MIT) at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in Futures by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.