Unused variable check no enforced for package scope

[gopherbot]

by SRRajesh1989:

A code like:

package main
var strx, inty = "hello", 123
func main() {
}

Note that strx and inty are not used anywhere in the program. But go fail
to report compilation error because of unused variable. But making that
declaration inside the function like below, generates compilation error.

package main
func main() {
var strx, inty = "hello", 123
}

Is this the intended behavior? It will be better to report error in both
the cases.

[rsc]

Comment 1:

The main reason we allow these is that this check is intended to catch:
    i := 0;
    if cond {
        i := 1;
    }
    println(i)
which always prints 0.  The global declarations are not involved.
Often it is useful to declare top-level constants that may not yet
be used.
The linker will throw them away when linking the program, so
they don't cause bloat in the binaries.

Owner changed to r...@golang.org.

Status changed to WontFix.