depend_on_referenced_packages triggers falsely on virtual flutter_gen package

[goderbauer]

When a flutter developer adds internationalization to their app as explained in https://docs.flutter.dev/development/accessibility-and-localization/internationalization#adding-your-own-localized-messages it generates a virtual flutter_gen package that the developer has to import in their app (see examples on the linked page). That package does not show up in the pubspec.yaml, but the depend_on_referenced_packages complains about it missing in there.

The flutter_gen package is made available by a rewrite of the package config file. It's a little suspect, but that's what we have right now. Long-term we can hopefully replace this with a macro or something.

In the short-term we need to fix the lint to not complain about this non-existent dependency.

[goderbauer]

@mit-mit @pq @srawlins @jonahwilliams

This is currently blocking for rolling the new lints version 2.0 into Flutter. We either need to exclude this lint from the package or come up with a quick fix. Outside of hardcoding an exception into the lint rule itself, I don't see many options, though...

[pq]

/fyi @jakemac53

[jakemac53]

😞 ya this package causes issues for build_runner and I think pub itself as well had some problems with it modifying the package config. We really should change how it works, but in the meantime a hack in the lint can suffice.

[pq]

OK. I've got a "fix" out in dart-lang/linter#3309. I can roll this with some fixes for use_super_parameters (#3306) into a Monday release.

[goderbauer]

Thank you!

[bwilkerson]

@goderbauer Is there a tracking issue to resolve the question of whether it's appropriate to special-case flutter_gen? The issue has come up again (Dart-Code/Dart-Code#3948). It's expensive for the tooling to have to handle special cases like this, but I don't know whether this is a special case that we can get avoid.

[goderbauer]

@bwilkerson I filed flutter/flutter#102983 to start a discussion for that.

[pq]

Excellent. Thanks @goderbauer!