Change https://golang.org/cl/176019 mentions this issue: internal/windows/sysdll: mark package as Windows-only

The go generate command accepts the -tags flag. One can also do GOOS=windows go generate.

If we made that file +build windows, then we couldn't run "go generate" on Linux.

To clarify, did you mean it's not possible to go generate on Linux without any flags/configuration? Otherwise, it is possible, either go generate -tags=windows or GOOS=windows go generate would work.

To clarify, did you mean it's not possible to go generate on Linux without any flags/configuration?
Otherwise, it is possible, either go generate -tags=windows or GOOS=windows go generate would work.

If the person has to think about or research which flags to go generate to use then there's no point to using go generate. The whole point of it was to have a consistent way for developers to update auto-generated files. Making users write go generate -tags=something is no better than the old situation of go run -something updatefoo.go or ./mkall.sh.

Wait, from the design doc,

https://golang.org/s/go1.4-generate

The go generate tool also sets the build tag "generate" so that files may be examined by go generate but ignored during build.

So that was the plan!

But it wasn't implemented it seems:

bradfitz@go:~/go/src/internal/syscall/windows$ git di
diff --git a/src/internal/syscall/windows/mksyscall.go b/src/internal/syscall/windows/mksyscall.go
index a8edafb3c3..0bf87dc95c 100644
--- a/src/internal/syscall/windows/mksyscall.go
+++ b/src/internal/syscall/windows/mksyscall.go
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
 // license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
 
+// +build generate
+
 package windows
 
 //go:generate go run $GOROOT/src/syscall/mksyscall_windows.go -output zsyscall_windows.go syscall_windows.go security_windows.go psapi_windows.go symlink_windows.go
bradfitz@go:~/go/src/internal/syscall/windows$ go generate
can't load package: package internal/syscall/windows: build constraints exclude all Go files in /home/bradfitz/go/src/internal/syscall/windows
bradfitz@go:~/go/src/internal/syscall/windows$ go generate --tags=generate
bradfitz@go:~/go/src/internal/syscall/windows$ 

I looked at Go 1.4 and Go 1.5 and neither supported adding the "generate" build tag for file selection, so it's not like we accidentally deleted it at some point. I guess it was just never done.

Sent https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/175983

Change https://golang.org/cl/175984 mentions this issue: internal/syscall/windows{,/registry}: mark packages as Windows-only

Change https://golang.org/cl/175983 mentions this issue: cmd/go: set the "generate" build tag in go generate, per design doc

Change https://golang.org/cl/175899 mentions this issue: windows: add "generate" build tag

If the person has to think about or research which flags to go generate to use then there's no point to using go generate.

I'm not sure this is true in general; some generators rely on build tags because they rely on type information. Hence they rely on the values of GOOS, GOARCH and -tags. See also #27898

We're wrestling with this problem in golang-tools world; not only for go generate, but also go vet, gopls, and other tools (e.g. staticcheck) where the "matrix" of valid builds needs to be known.

In the case of gopls (and editors), the user might also need to specify (from their editor) which build they are interested in.

Considering go vet, staticcheck et al, in a CI context they might need/want to iterate over the "matrix" of valid builds.