reflect: field lookup ignores methods that cancel fields (ambiguity is ignored)

[griesemer]

1) $ cat x.go
package main

import "reflect"

type S1 struct {
    m int
}

type S2 struct{}

func (S2) m() int { return 0 }

type S struct {
    S1
    S2
}

func main() {
    var s S
    t := reflect.TypeOf(s)
    if f, ok := t.FieldByName("m"); ok {
        println("field found:", f.Name)
    } else {
        println("field not found")
    }
}


2) $ go run x.go
field found: m


But in truth, the field m and the method m are at the same level and thus "cancel
each other out". In the same program, accessing s.m leads to a compile-time error (
ambiguous selector s.m ).

The bug is in http://golang.org/src/pkg/reflect/type.go?#L856
(structType.FieldByNameFunc) which ignores methods.

[rsc]

Comment 1:

Labels changed: added go1.2.

[rsc]

Comment 2:

Labels changed: added feature.

[dsymonds]

Comment 3:

Labels changed: added priority-soon, removed priority-triage.

[robpike]

Comment 4:

Not for 1.2.

Labels changed: removed go1.2.

[davidthomas426]

Comment 5:

We should not expect getting true for the second return value of FieldByName to imply
that s.m will compile in the example above. There are other reasons we might not be able
to SEE a field, even if it exists (e.g., it is unexported in a different package).
The real problem, I think, is the comment at
http://golang.org/src/pkg/reflect/type.go?#L860 that says "This uses the same condition
that the Go language does", because it is not even close to true. I don't think people
even want that to be true, unless they don't want to be able to use reflection to
examine unexported fields of struct types from other packages.
This is related to https://golang.org/issue/4876 as well, which has
been marked fixed simply because the confusing behavior is now documented (by a comment
in the code starting with "BUG", I might add).
The real problem is that we don't seem to be sure whether we want reflection to show us
all the internals or just the stuff we can get at.

[rsc]

Comment 6:

Labels changed: added go1.3maybe.

[rsc]

Comment 7:

Labels changed: removed feature.

[rsc]

Comment 8:

Labels changed: added release-none, removed go1.3maybe.

[rsc]

Comment 9:

Labels changed: added repo-main.