go test can't find function in a same package

The directory structure is :

src
src/pkg
src/pkg/t1.go
src/pkg/t1_test.go

---

t1.go

package pkg

import (
"fmt"
)

func SayHI(){
	fmt.Println("this is t1")
}

---

t1_test.go

package pkg

import (
    "testing"
)

func TestXYZ(t *testing.T) {
	SayHI()
}

---

Invoke go test from command line at dir src/pkg

go test t1_test.go

---

error:

./t1_test.go:8: undefined: SayHI
FAIL	command-line-arguments [build failed]

but the function is there

thanks for any hints

It is working as intended.

jnml@fsc-r630:~/src/pkg$ go help test
usage: go test [-c] [-i] [build flags] [packages] [flags for test binary]

'Go test' automates testing the packages named by the import paths.
It prints a summary of the test results in the format:

    ok   archive/tar   0.011s
    FAIL archive/zip   0.022s
    ok   compress/gzip 0.033s
    ...

followed by detailed output for each failed package.

'Go test' recompiles each package along with any files with names matching
the file pattern "*_test.go".  These additional files can contain test functions,
benchmark functions, and example functions.  See 'go help testfunc' for more.

By default, go test needs no arguments.  It compiles and tests the package
with source in the current directory, including tests, and runs the tests.

The package is built in a temporary directory so it does not interfere with the
non-test installation.

In addition to the build flags, the flags handled by 'go test' itself are:

    -c  Compile the test binary to pkg.test but do not run it.

    -i
        Install packages that are dependencies of the test.
        Do not run the test.

The test binary also accepts flags that control execution of the test; these
flags are also accessible by 'go test'.  See 'go help testflag' for details.

For more about build flags, see 'go help build'.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.

See also: go build, go vet.
jnml@fsc-r630:~/src/pkg$ 

In other words:

• go test is okay.
• go test pkg (assuming $GOPATH is ~ and the package is in ~/src/pkg) is okay.
• go test whatever_test.go is not okay as that is not supported as documented above.

To select which tests to run use the -run <regular_expression> flag (where the <regular_expression> is interpreted as having wildcards on either end, like .*<regular_expression>.*). For example

$ go test -run Say # from within the package's directory

or

$ go test -run Say my/package/import/path # from anywhere

This is somewhat strange in Golang. To be honest it took me some time to figure a way out.

A simple work-around is to include them in the command, eg: go test src/pkg/t1.go src/pkg/t1_test.go

IMHO, The best way is to keep it clean. So avoid having more than 1 file as dependency per test file. If you are using +1 file as dependency, consider creating a black-box test with a _test package and do not make use of any lowerCase internal vars.

This will avoid you having to deal with complicated dependencies on your day to day testing.

Run

go test ./...

This will find all the tests in all test files. To run individual tests, specify the dependencies like here.

I came across this Stackoverflow question after encountering the exact same issue myself: specifically, attempting to run go test and then seeing a build failure indicating that the function in question isn't defined. I see that this question is somewhat old now (asked 8 years ago) but in my case the issue was that I was attempting to write code in Go 1.16 that seems to now assume the presence/use of modules. See this page for a starting reference on modules and easy follow-along example.

All I had to do in my case was run go mod init [module name] and after that I could run go test without any issues.

Hopefully this is of some value to users coming to this page after using a more modern (1.16+) version of Go.