The documentation doesn't seem to clearly state that golangci-lint run also runs configured formatters (v2)

[ForgottenR]

As the titles says, this is a bit confusing since v2 added not only the formatters configuration, but also a fmt subcommand. I've been assuming we have to use golangci-lint fmt to look for formatting issues for a very long time until recently corrected by a colleague. I did eventually find relevant information in this blog post. But clear informtion about this behaviour is nowhere to be found on the doc website, which I believe should be looked into.

[ldez]

Hello, this is a recurring interrogation, so I think I will add the section about that inside the FAQ page.

[camsteffen]

The CLI output could be improved too. Right now the printed description for run is Lint the code.. I think a lot of people (including myself) consider linting and formatting to be two distinct things rather than "formatting is part of linting".

[ldez]

golangci-lint run doesn't format the code: inside this command the formatters are used "as linters", this is different.

https://golangci-lint.run/docs/configuration/cli/#run

[camsteffen]

Hmm, I thought "format the code" and "run the formatters" are the same thing. I see that the docs makes a distinction but I don't understand the difference.

[ldez]

The notions of "formatter"/"formatting" and "linter"/"linting" are different.

A formatter formats the code, it doesn't report any issue: this is the action of formatting the code.
A linter checks the code for potential errors or style issues and reports them but doesn't fix them by default.

"formatting the code" is different from "run formatters as linters" because the result is different.

When you run golangci-lint run, the code will not be formatted, you will only have reports (unless you are using --fix).
When you run golangci-lint fmt, the code will be formatted.

[camsteffen]

I see. Thanks for explaining. Reading the note in the docs again, it's hard to pinpoint why I didn't get it. Maybe it could be reworded to say,

This commands executes formatters in addition to linters, but formatting changes are reported as errors unless the --fix flag is given.