depth

depth is tool to retrieve and visualize Go source code dependency trees.

Install

Download the appropriate binary for your platform from the Releases page, or:

sh
go get github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth

Usage

depth can be used as a standalone command-line application, or as a package within your own project.

Command-Line

Simply execute depth with one or more package names to visualize. You can use the fully qualified import path of the package, like so:

sh
$ depth github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
  ├ encoding/json
  ├ flag
  ├ fmt
  ├ io
  ├ log
  ├ os
  ├ strings
  └ github.com/KyleBanks/depth
    ├ fmt
    ├ go/build
    ├ path
    ├ sort
    └ strings
12 dependencies (11 internal, 1 external, 0 testing).

Or you can use a relative path, for example:

sh
$ depth .
$ depth ./cmd/depth
$ depth ../

You can also use depth on the Go standard library:

sh
$ depth strings
strings
  ├ errors
  ├ internal/bytealg
  ├ io
  ├ sync
  ├ unicode
  ├ unicode/utf8
  └ unsafe
7 dependencies (7 internal, 0 external, 0 testing).

Visualizing multiple packages at a time is supported by simply naming the packages you'd like to visualize:

sh
$ depth strings github.com/KyleBanks/depth 
strings
  ├ errors
  ├ internal/bytealg
  ├ io
  ├ sync
  ├ unicode
  ├ unicode/utf8
  └ unsafe
7 dependencies (7 internal, 0 external, 0 testing).
github.com/KyleBanks/depth
  ├ bytes
  ├ errors
  ├ go/build
  ├ os
  ├ path
  ├ sort
  └ strings
7 dependencies (7 internal, 0 external, 0 testing).

`-internal`

By default, depth only resolves the top level of dependencies for standard library packages, however you can use the -internal flag to visualize all internal dependencies:

sh
$ depth -internal strings
strings
  ├ errors
  │ └ internal/reflectlite
  │   ├ internal/unsafeheader
  │   │ └ unsafe
  │   ├ runtime
  │   │ ├ internal/abi
  │   │ │ └ unsafe
  │   │ ├ internal/bytealg
  │   │ │ ├ internal/cpu
  │   │ │ └ unsafe
  │   │ ├ internal/cpu
  │   │ ├ internal/goexperiment
  │   │ ├ runtime/internal/atomic
  │   │ │ └ unsafe
  │   │ ├ runtime/internal/math
  │   │ │ └ runtime/internal/sys
  │   │ ├ runtime/internal/sys
  │   │ └ unsafe
  │   └ unsafe
  ├ internal/bytealg
  ├ io
  │ ├ errors
  │ └ sync
  │   ├ internal/race
  │   │ └ unsafe
  │   ├ runtime
  │   ├ sync/atomic
  │   │ └ unsafe
  │   └ unsafe
  ├ sync
  ├ unicode
  ├ unicode/utf8
  └ unsafe
18 dependencies (18 internal, 0 external, 0 testing).

`-max`

The -max flag limits the dependency tree to the maximum depth provided. For example, if you supply -max 1 on the depth package, your output would look like so:

$ depth -max 1 github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
  ├ encoding/json
  ├ flag
  ├ fmt
  ├ io
  ├ log
  ├ os
  ├ strings
  └ github.com/KyleBanks/depth
7 dependencies (6 internal, 1 external, 0 testing).

The -max flag is particularly useful in conjunction with the -internal flag which can lead to very deep dependency trees.

`-test`

By default, depth ignores dependencies that are only required for testing. However, you can view test dependencies using the -test flag:

sh
$ depth -test strings
strings
  ├ bytes
  ├ errors
  ├ fmt
  ├ internal/bytealg
  ├ internal/testenv
  ├ io
  ├ math/rand
  ├ reflect
  ├ strconv
  ├ sync
  ├ testing
  ├ unicode
  ├ unicode/utf8
  └ unsafe
14 dependencies (14 internal, 0 external, 7 testing).

`-explain target-package`

The -explain flag instructs depth to print import chains in which the
target-package is found:

sh
$ depth -explain strings github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth -> strings
github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth -> github.com/KyleBanks/depth -> strings

`-json`

The -json flag instructs depth to output dependencies in JSON format:

sh
$ depth -json github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth
{
  "name": "github.com/KyleBanks/depth/cmd/depth",
  "deps": [
    {
      "name": "encoding/json",
      "internal": true,
      "deps": null
    },
    ...
    {
      "name": "github.com/KyleBanks/depth",
      "internal": false,
      "deps": [
        {
          "name": "go/build",
          "internal": true,
          "deps": null
        },
        ...
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Integrating With Your Project

The depth package can easily be used to retrieve the dependency tree for a particular package in your own project. For example, here's how you would retrieve the dependency tree for the strings package:

go
import "github.com/KyleBanks/depth"

var t depth.Tree
err := t.Resolve("strings")
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}

// Output: "'strings' has 4 dependencies."
log.Printf("'%v' has %v dependencies.", t.Root.Name, len(t.Root.Deps))

For additional customization, simply set the appropriate flags on the Tree before resolving:

go
import "github.com/KyleBanks/depth"

t := depth.Tree {
  ResolveInternal: true,
  ResolveTest: true,
  MaxDepth: 10,
}


err := t.Resolve("strings")