Go supports two ways to write import statements: multiple separate statements or a single factored statement that groups imports in
parentheses.
While both approaches are syntactically valid, the Go community strongly recommends using factored import statements. This convention is documented
in the official Go Tour and is widely adopted across Go codebases.
Factored imports offer several advantages:
- Better organization: All imports are grouped in one place, making dependencies easier to see at a glance
- Cleaner code: Reduces visual clutter by eliminating repeated
import keywords
- Consistency: Follows the established Go style guidelines that most developers expect
- Tool compatibility: Many Go formatting tools like
gofmt automatically convert separate imports to factored form
Using separate import statements makes code look less polished and can signal unfamiliarity with Go conventions to other developers.
What is the potential impact?
This is a style issue that affects code readability and consistency. While it doesn’t impact functionality, following Go conventions makes code
more maintainable and professional.
