go 1.11.4 does not seem to look into the vendor directory

[cnst]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version
go version go1.11.4 linux/amd64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Running the latest release direct from a golang.org download.

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

go env Output

$ go env
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/home/ubuntu/.cache/go-build"
GOEXE=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOOS="linux"
GOPATH="/home/ubuntu/go"
GOPROXY=""
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
CC="gcc"
CXX="g++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
GOMOD=""
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build981837178=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches"

What did you do?

go build | & head -4

What did you expect to see?

Nothing — expected the build to complete successfully.

What did you see instead?

ubuntu:R {607} go version
go version go1.11.4 linux/amd64
ubuntu:R {608} go build | & head -4
server.go:10:2: cannot find package "example.org/M/B" in any of:
	/usr/local/go/src/example.org/M/B (from $GOROOT)
	/home/ubuntu/go/src/example.org/M/B (from $GOPATH)
R.go:8:2: cannot find package "example.org/M/D" in any of:
ubuntu:R {609} ll vendor/example.org/M/B/
total 28
4 -rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu  156 Jan 10 17:57 .drone.yml
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 6207 Jan 10 17:57 Gopkg.lock
4 -rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu  798 Jan 10 17:57 Gopkg.toml
4 -rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu   53 Jan 10 17:57 README.md
8 -rw-r--r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 4783 Jan 10 17:57 B.go
ubuntu:R {610} 

Issue

The issue I'm having is that not only is the vendor directory seemingly completely ignored (at least for this specific project, as per the error message), but that the error message seems to indicate that it's not even being looked at. I am not sure of the proper way to debug this, or how to troubleshoot this further. The vendor directory comes straight as part of a pristine git clone of a production package (that contains this vendor directory directly), and nothing in its path is a symlink.

[mvdan]

See https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Modules#how-do-i-use-vendoring-with-modules-is-vendoring-going-away, in particular -mod=vendor.

[bcmills]

Please include a complete (and ideally minimal) source tree that reproduces the problem.

[cnst]

@bcmills I do not think it's reasonable to require a minimal source code tree here, before there are any known steps of troubleshooting the issue (in fact, the troubleshooting steps is all I'm asking here for), all coupled with confusing/contradictory/outdated documentation of what's even supposed to happen here.

All I did was install Go with apt-get (got the latest go-1.10 on the latest ubuntu-18.10-server-cloudimg-amd64.img); when that didn't work (whichever the reason, was giving me lots of errors like, cannot find package "bufio" in any of:, /usr/lib/go-1.10/src/bufio (from $GOROOT)), I installed the latest go-1.11 directly from golang.org as per official instructions, which seems to work, except for not picking up stuff from vendor.

• go build on a production project with a vendor directory doesn't work, as specified in the original bug.

• env GOFLAGS=-mod=vendor go build, as per the first comment, doesn't work, either, producing the same error messages as without the GOFLAGS.

[bcmills]

I'm sorry, but without knowing at least the directory structure of the code in question, we have no way to diagnose it: we don't know what package you are building, where the relevant vendor subdirectories might be located, or where the file server.go is in relation to those directories.

https://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Vendor_Directories describes the expected directory structure.

You might be able to use go list -deps to investigate that structure, but of course it won't tell you why a given directory is not in the search path.

[bcmills]

I am not surprised that -mod=vendor had no effect: according to your go env output you are building in GOPATH mode, which looks for vendor directories more aggressively than does module mode.

[cnst]

This issue stops being reproducible when $PWD within $GOPATH (e.g., can be accomplished by making a symlink, and cd'ing into said symlink). I think there's a lot of room for improvement on documenting this requirement, as, logically, it just makes very little sense for vendor directory to work this way.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54140415/go-1-11-ignores-the-vendor-directory-the-errors-give-the-impression-the-direc/54156547#54156547

Just as an example, searching for $GOPATH returns https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/GOPATH as first result, and there's zero mentions of vendor at the time of this comment (I've since updated the wiki). Likewise, your link mentions no such requirement, either.

[bcmills]

Given that you have a workaround, that the problem is only reproducible when working outside of GOPATH (which is not well-supported in GOPATH mode in the first place — a significant motivation for the introduction of module mode!), and that we still don't have a clear standalone reproducer, I doubt that we will have the bandwidth to fix it before GOPATH mode is deprecated.

That said, if someone wants to send a fix for 1.13 I'd be glad to review it.

[cnst]

Are you saying it's normally supposed to work outside of GOPATH as well, with go1.11.4?

I haven't tried reproducing it, but I don't see how my project would be different from any other one, so, I don't imagine you'd have any issues reproducing this.

[cnst]

#14566 — the issue is closed, the follow-to issue is closed as well, giving you the impression it should all work nowadays years later, yet the problem still persists.

There's just too much indirection for all of this, and documentation is clearly inadequate on this simple matter.