How can I compare two source code files/ ast trees?

I'm generating some source code using the templates package( is there a better method? )and part of the testing I need to check if the output matches the expected source code.

• I tried a string comparison but it fails due the extra spaces / new lines generated by the templates package. I've also tried format.Source with not success. ( FAIL)

• I tried to parse the ast of the both sources (see bellow) but the ast doesn't match either even if the code is basically same except the new lines / spaces. (FAIL)

   package main
  
    import (
    	"fmt"
    	"go/parser"
    	"go/token"
    	"reflect"
    )
  
    func main() {
    	stub1 := `package main
    	 func myfunc(s string) error {
    		return nil	
    	}`
    	stub2 := `package main
  
    	 func myfunc(s string) error {
  
    		return nil
  
    	}`
    	fset := token.NewFileSet()
    	r1, err := parser.ParseFile(fset, "", stub1, parser.AllErrors)
    	if err != nil {
    		panic(err)
    	}
    	fset = token.NewFileSet()
    	r2, err := parser.ParseFile(fset, "", stub2, parser.AllErrors)
    	if err != nil {
    		panic(err)
    	}
    	if !reflect.DeepEqual(r1, r2) {
    		fmt.Printf("e %v, r %s, ", r1, r2)
    	}
    }
  

Playground

Well, one simple way to achieve this is to use the go/printer library, that gives you better control of output formatting, and is basically like running gofmt on the source, normalizing both trees:

package main
import (
"fmt"
"go/parser"
"go/token"
"go/printer"
//"reflect"
"bytes"
)
func main() {
stub1 := `package main
func myfunc(s string) error {
return nil  
}`
stub2 := `package main
func myfunc(s string) error {
return nil
}`
fset1 := token.NewFileSet()
r1, err := parser.ParseFile(fset1, "", stub1, parser.AllErrors)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
fset2 := token.NewFileSet()
r2, err := parser.ParseFile(fset1, "", stub2, parser.AllErrors)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// we create two output buffers for each source tree
out1 := bytes.NewBuffer(nil)
out2 := bytes.NewBuffer(nil)
// we use the same printer config for both
conf := &printer.Config{Mode: printer.TabIndent | printer.UseSpaces, Tabwidth: 8}
// print to both outputs
if err := conf.Fprint(out1, fset1, r1); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
if err := conf.Fprint(out2, fset2, r2); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// they should be identical!
if string(out1.Bytes()) != string(out2.Bytes()) {
panic(string(out1.Bytes()) +"\n" + string(out2.Bytes()))
} else {
fmt.Println("A-OKAY!")
}
}

Of course this code needs to be refactored to not look as stupid. Another approach is instead of using DeepEqual, create a tree comparison function yourself, that skips irrelevant nodes.

This was easier than I thought. All I had to do was to remove the empty new lines(after formatting). Below is the code.

    package main
import (
"fmt"
"go/format"
"strings"
)
func main() {
a, err := fmtSource(stub1)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
b, err := fmtSource(stub2)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
if a != b {
fmt.Printf("a %v, \n b %v", a, b)
}
}
func fmtSource(source string) (string, error) {
if !strings.Contains(source, "package") {
source = "package main\n" + source
}
b, err := format.Source([]byte(source))
if err != nil {
return "", err
}
// cleanLine replaces double space with one space
cleanLine := func(s string)string{
sa := strings.Fields(s)
return strings.Join(sa, " ")
}
lines := strings.Split(string(b), "\n")
n := 0
var startLn *int
for _, line := range lines {
if line != "" {
line = cleanLine(line)
lines[n] = line
if startLn == nil {
x := n
startLn = &x
}
n++
}
}
lines = lines[*startLn:n]
// Add final "" entry to get trailing newline from Join.
if n > 0 && lines[n-1] != "" {
lines = append(lines, "")
}
// Make it pretty 
b, err = format.Source([]byte(strings.Join(lines, "\n")))
if err != nil {
return "", err
}
return string(b), nil
}