Code completion

Invoke basic completion

By default, GoLand displays the code completion popup automatically as you type. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+Space or select Code | Code Completion | Basic from the main menu.

Invoke completion for functions

• To view and complete functions that are suitable for a value of the certain type, hold Ctrl and press Space twice.

  For example, you have the t variable of the string type. When you type t., hold Ctrl and press Space twice, you see a list of functions that accept the string type as the first argument.

  

Invoke type-matching completion

• Smart type-matching code completion filters the suggestion list and shows only the types applicable to the current context. To invoke type-matching completion, start typing your code and press Ctrl+Shift+Space. Alternatively, select Code | Code Completion | Type-Matching from the main menu. The following animation shows the difference between basic and type-matching completion.

Expand a string at caret to an existing word

1. Type the initial string and do one of the following:

   • Press Alt+/ or choose Code | Code Completion | Cyclic Expand Word to search for matching words before the caret.

   • Press Alt+Shift+/ or choose Code | Code Completion | Cyclic Expand Word (Backward) to search for matching words after the caret and in other open files.

   The first suggested value appears, and the prototype is highlighted in the source code.

2. Accept the suggestion, or hold the Alt key and keep pressing \ until the desired word is found.

Enable and configure postfix completion

• In the Settings dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), open Editor | General | Postfix Completion and select the Enable postfix completion checkbox.

• Select Tab, Space, or Enter to be used for expanding postfix templates.

• Enable/disable a particular postfix template for the selected language.

Transform a statement with a postfix

Type an expression and then type a postfix after a dot, for example, .if:

The initial expression gets wrapped with an if statement:

Create custom postfix templates

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Editor | General | Postfix Completion.

2. Click the Add button () on the toolbar.

3. In the Create New Template dialog that opens, specify Key, a combination of symbols after the dot that will invoke the template.

4. Select which expression types the new template will be applicable to, and type the target expression in the following format: $EXPR$ <target_expression>, for example, $EXPR$ != nil.

   Inside the template, you can use two predefined variables:

   • $EXPR$ refers to the target expression (the expression preceding the dot).

   • $END$ defines the position of the caret after the template has been invoked.

   The Apply to the topmost expression checkbox applies your template to the entire expression ignoring the scope. So you do not need to select the scope for the template each time.

   

Enable ML completion

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and select Editor | General | Code Completion.

2. Under Machine Learning Completion Ranking, enable the Sort completion suggestions based on machine learning option, and select the languages for which you want to use ML completion.

   

Enable relevance markers

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and select Editor | General | Code Completion.

2. Enable the following options:

   • Mark position changes in the completion popup: use the and icons to indicate whether the relevance of a suggestion is increasing or decreasing and therefore the suggestion has moved up or down the suggestion list.

   • Mark the most relevant item in the completion popup: use the icon to indicate the most suitable suggestion on the list.

   

Enable the Full Line Code Completion plugin

This functionality relies on the Full Line Code Completion plugin, which is bundled and enabled in GoLand by default. If the relevant features are not available, make sure that you did not disable the plugin.

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Plugins.

2. Open the Installed tab, find the Full Line Code Completion plugin, and select the checkbox next to the plugin name.

Enable and configure Full Line completion

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and select Editor | General | Inline Completion.

2. Select the Enable local Full Line completion suggestions checkbox and select the languages that you want to use Full Line completion with.

   Models for Go are bundled with GoLand.

   For some languages, for example, for CSS and JavaScript / TypeScript, you need to manually download models by clicking Download to enable completion.

   

3. Disable the Enable automatic completion on typing option to show completion suggestions when you press Alt+Shift+\ instead of showing them automatically when you type.

4. Disable the Enable syntax highlighting in completion suggestions option to show suggestions in gray italics without syntax highlighting.

Change the completion shortcut

1. Hover over the suggestion.

2. In the popup that appears, click and select the key that you want to use for accepting suggestions, for example, Right.

   To assign your own shortcut, select Custom.

   

3. For quick access to the Full Line completion settings, click in the popup.

Configure completion options

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Editor | General | Code Completion.

2. • To automatically display the suggestion list, select the Show suggestions as you type checkbox. If the checkbox is cleared, you have to call code completion explicitly by pressing Ctrl+Space for basic completion or Ctrl+Shift+Space for type-matching completion.

     You can also choose to automatically insert suggestions when there's just one option: select the completion type under Automatically insert single suggestions for.

   • To sort suggestions in the alphabetical order, instead of sorting them by relevance, select the Sort suggestions alphabetically checkbox.

     You can also toggle these modes by clicking or respectively in the lower-right corner of the suggestion list.

   • If you want the documentation popup to be displayed automatically for each item in the suggestion list as you scroll it, select the Show documentation popup in option. In the field to the right, specify the delay (in milliseconds), after which the popup should appear.

Open completion settings from the completion popup

You can quickly access code completion settings right from the completion popup.

• Click the icon in the completion popup and select Code Completion Settings.

  

After that, the Editor | General | Code Completion settings page  Ctrl+Alt+S opens.

Narrow down the suggestion list

• You can narrow down the suggestion list by typing any part of a word (even characters from somewhere in the middle) or invoking code completion after a dot separator . GoLand will show suggestions that include the characters you have entered in any positions.

  This makes the use of wildcards unnecessary:

  

  In case of CamelCase or snake_case names, type the initial letters only. GoLand automatically recognizes and matches the initial letters.

Accept a suggestion

You can accept a suggestion from the list in one of the following ways:

• Press Enter or double-click a list item to insert it to the left of the caret.

• Press Tab to replace the characters to the right from the caret.

• Use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to make the current code construct syntactically correct (balance parentheses, add missing braces and semicolons, and so on).

• You can also use specific keys and custom characters to accept the selected completion suggestion. To enable these features, go to the Editor | General | Code Completion settings page  Ctrl+Alt+S and do the following:

  1. To use specific keys, select the Insert the selected suggestion by pressing space, dot, or other context-dependent keys checkbox. These keys depend on the language, your context, and so on.

  2. To also use custom characters, enter the characters into the Additional characters to accept the completion field.

View reference

• You can use the Quick Definition view by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I when you select an entry in the suggestion list:

  

• You can use the Quick Information view by pressing Ctrl+Q when you select an entry in the suggestion list:

View code hierarchy

You can view code hierarchy when you've selected an entry from the suggestion list:

• Ctrl+H - view type hierarchy

• Ctrl+Shift+H - view method hierarchy.

Fill struct fields

When you create a new struct, you can automatically generate field names for it. This action works for generic structs.

The IDE ignores auto-generated protocol buffer fields that start with XXX_ when you invoke the Fill all fields intention action. These fields are shown only after you invoke completion for a second time.

1. Start typing the struct name, select it from the completion list.

2. Place a caret between braces of a struct.

3. Press Ctrl+Space. Alternatively, press Alt+Enter.

4. Select between the following options:

   • Fill all fields: generates values for all the fields that belong to the current struct.

   • Fill all fields recursively: generates values for all the fields that belong to the current struct type and all the pointers to other struct types recursively.

   • Fill fields: displays the Select Fields dialog where you can select the fields that you want to add. Select Recursively to parse fields from all the related structs. Clear the Enforce multiline checkbox to display all fields on a single line. In the Select Fields dialog, press Ctrl and click the fields that you want to add.

5. Click OK.

   

Format date and time

• The time package uses predefined layouts that you can use in Time.Format and time.Parse. The reference time used in the layouts is the specific time: Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006. It means that to define your own format, you need to write down what the reference time would look like formatted your way.

  In GoLand, when you press Ctrl+Space, you will see placeholders for time and data elements from ISO-8601. Code completion also suggests standard time layouts outside of the string literal.