I had reported a slight variant of this in gophers slack, where I was trying to retract a version 2 while the module is still in version 0.

repro:

mkdir -p /tmp/example; cd /tmp/example; go mod init example
rm -rf main.go
tee -a main.go <<EOF
package main
func main(){println("hello")}
EOF
go mod edit -retract=v2.0.2
go mod tidy

The error message I got is;

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:5: malformed module path "": empty string

Seankhliao pointed out it should not be possible to retract a v2 while still in v0.
So, I'm just posting this here so that the error message can be improved; malformed module path would lead someone to believe that the thing they need to fix is their module name/path

CC @jayconrod @matloob

@gopherbot, please backport to Go 1.16.

Backport issue(s) opened: #44496 (for 1.16).

Remember to create the cherry-pick CL(s) as soon as the patch is submitted to master, according to https://golang.org/wiki/MinorReleases.

Just FYI: this is not fixed by CL 295150, so #44497 appears to be unrelated.

Change https://golang.org/cl/296130 mentions this issue: modfile: defer fixing versions in retract directives

Change https://golang.org/cl/296131 mentions this issue: cmd: upgrade golang.org/x/mod to fix go.mod parser

@jayconrod Thanks for working on & closing this.
However, if someone edits the go.mod file and adds a retract, then they still get a confusing error message when running go mod tidy or go build

mkdir -p /tmp/example; cd /tmp/example; gotip mod init example
rm -rf main.go
tee -a main.go <<EOF
package main
func main(){println("hello")}
EOF
rm -rf go.mod
tee -a go.mod <<EOF
module example
go 1.17
retract v2.0.2
EOF
gotip mod tidy

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: malformed module path "": empty string

I still think this error message could be better. malformed module path implies that what is wrong with our mod file is the module path, yet it isn't

@komuw Thanks. Looks like things are still not quite right.

Could you verify what commit you're building from? I'm actually seeing a different error at 5f15af1.

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: malformed module path "example": missing dot in first path element

Change https://golang.org/cl/296590 mentions this issue: cmd/go/internal/modload: don't query when fixing canonical versions

@jayconrod
I have just updated my gotip;

gotip version
go version devel +e25040d Fri Feb 26 02:52:33 2021 +0000 darwin/amd64

and the error I now get is;

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: malformed module path "example": missing dot in first path element

@komuw, we're getting closer, then! The real problem now, I think, is that it is not possible to retract a path that cannot be fetched remotely (because how would users be notified of the retraction?).

But we still need a better error message for that case. 🙂

gotip version
go version devel +a400eb3 Mon Mar 1 15:24:01 2021 +0000 darwin/amd64

gotip mod tidy

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: retract example: version "v2.0.2" invalid: should be v0 or v1, not v2

go build .

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: malformed module path "": empty string

@jayconrod Thanks for fixing the error message. The go build error message is still off, is that intentional?
Personally, I'm okay with it since I usually run tidy before build.

gotip version
go version devel +a400eb3 Mon Mar 1 15:24:01 2021 +0000 darwin/amd64

gotip mod tidy

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: retract example: version "v2.0.2" invalid: should be v0 or v1, not v2

go build .

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: malformed module path "": empty string

@jayconrod Thanks for fixing the error message. The go build error message is still off, is that intentional?
Personally, I'm okay with it since I usually run tidy before build.

Apologies, I just realised I was running go build . instead of gotip build .

gotip build .

go: errors parsing go.mod:
/tmp/example/go.mod:3: retract example: version "v2.0.2" invalid: should be v0 or v1, not v2

using gotip build . returns the correct error