GoGithub

README

Playing with Github API with GO-GITHUB Golang library

Go-github library is a client library that provides an easy way to interact with the GitHub API. This library is being initially developed for an internal application at Google, so API methods will likely be implemented in the order that they are needed by that application. We can track the status of implementation in this Google spreadsheet. API documentation is hosted on godoc.org.

This quick-start demonstrates how to use Go-GitHub library in Golang application and get GitHub data and display on console or terminal.

We’ll cover:

• Prerequisites for this tutorial
• Github API Rate Limit
• Setting up your application
• Go-Github client with Authentication
• Get specific repository Info
• Github last commit information of specific repository
• Get README.MD Content
• Get Rate Limit Information

Prerequisites for the Golang tutorial

1. Basic knowledge of GO language
2. Azure subscription. (If you don’t have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.)
3. IDE — Gogland by Jetbrains or Visual Studio Code by Microsoft or Atom

Github API Rate Limit

To ensure a high quality of service for all API consumers, github team has reduced the default rate limit for unauthenticated requests. Unauthenticated requests will be limited to 60 per hour. To enjoy the default rate limit of 5,000 requests per hour, you’ll need toauthenticate via Basic Auth or OAuth.

How to get Github OAuth2 Access Token

1. Login to Github.com
2. Go to user’s settings

User settings link

1. Go to Personal Access Token and click on Generate new token

Generate new token

1. Fill Token description and check **repo **checkbox.

Token required information and scopes

1. Get/Copy token. This token will be used to Go-Github library

Setting up your application

It’s time to make our hands dirty. Open your favorite editor (Gogland, VS Code or Atom). For this article, I will use Gogland editor.

1. Create folder GoGithub folder inside GOROOT\src folder

2. Get go-github package

   go get github.com/google/go-github/github

Go-Github Client

Following code snippet will be used to get Go-Github client

import "github.com/google/go-github/github"

client := github.NewClient(nil)

Go-Github client with Authentication

The go-github library does not directly handle authentication. Instead, when creating a new client, pass an that can handle authentication for you. The easiest and recommended way to do this is using the OAuth2 library, but you can always use any other library that provides an . If you have an OAuth2 access token (for example, a personal API token), you can use it with the OAuth2 library using:

import "golang.org/x/oauth2"
func main() {
  ctx := context.Background()
  ts := oauth2.StaticTokenSource(
    &oauth2.Token{AccessToken: "... your access token ..."},
  )
  tc := oauth2.NewClient(ctx, ts)

  // get go-github client
  client := github.NewClient(tc)
}

For API methods that require HTTP Basic Authentication, use the.

Get specific repository Info

**client.Repositories.Get(ctx context.Context, owner, repo string) (*Repository, *Response, error) **code will be used to get repository information. Please refer below code snippet to get repository information. **Get() **returns pointer to repository.

package main

import (
	"github.com/google/go-github/github"
	"golang.org/x/oauth2"
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"os"
)

// Model
type Package struct {
	FullName      string
	Description   string
	StarsCount    int
	ForksCount    int
	LastUpdatedBy string
}

func main() {
	context := context.Background()
	tokenService := oauth2.StaticTokenSource(
		&oauth2.Token{AccessToken: "<!-- Your API Keys -->"},
	)
	tokenClient := oauth2.NewClient(context, tokenService)

	client := github.NewClient(tokenClient)

	repo, _, err := client.Repositories.Get(context, "Golang-Coach", "Lessons")

	if err != nil {
		fmt.Printf("Problem in getting repository information %v\n", err)
		os.Exit(1)
	}

	pack := &Package{
		FullName: *repo.FullName,
		Description: *repo.Description,
		ForksCount: *repo.ForksCount,
		StarsCount: *repo.StargazersCount,
	}

	fmt.Printf("%+v\n", pack)
}

Github last commit information of specific repository

**client.Repositories.ListCommits(ctx context.Context, owner, repo string, opt *CommitsListOptions) ([]*RepositoryCommit, *Response, error) **api will provide you list of commits by descending order. At a time, this api will return maximum 30 commits information. This default behavior can be changed by passing CommitsListOptions arguments.

// ListOptions specifies the optional parameters to various List methods that
// support pagination.
ListOptions 
{
       // For paginated result sets, page of results to retrieve.
       Page int `url:"page,omitempty"`
       // For paginated result sets, the number of results to include per page.
       PerPage int `url:"per_page,omitempty"`
}

To get last commit information, take first item from result as shown below:

commitInfo, _, err := client.Repositories.ListCommits(context, "Golang-Coach", "Lessons", nil)

if err != nil {
  fmt.Printf("Problem in commit information %v\n", err)
  os.Exit(1)
}

fmt.Printf("%+v\n", commitInfo[0]) // Last commit information

Get README.MD Content

**client.Repositories.GetReadme(ctx context.Context, owner, repo string, opt *RepositoryContentGetOptions) (*RepositoryContent, *Response, error) **api will be used to get README.MD information. Please refer below code snippet:

// repository readme information
readme, _, err := client.Repositories.GetReadme(context, "facebook", "react-native", nil)
if err != nil {
	fmt.Printf("Problem in getting readme information %v\n", err)
	return
}

// get content
content, err := readme.GetContent()
if err != nil {
	fmt.Printf("Problem in getting readme content %v\n", err)
	return
}

fmt.Println(content)

Get Rate Limit Information

**client.RateLimits(ctx context.Context) (*RateLimits, *Response, error) **api will be used to get rate limit information. Example as follows:

// Get Rate limit information
rateLimit, _, err := client.RateLimits(context)
if err != nil {
  fmt.Printf("Problem in getting rate limit information %v\n", err)
  return
}

fmt.Printf("Limit: %d \nRemaining %d \n", rateLimit.Core.Limit, rateLimit.Core.Remaining ) // Last rate limit information

Get the complete Golang tutorial solution

Please have a look at the entire source code at GitHub.

• Golang
• Github
• Github Api
• Gogithub
• Go

Durgaprasad Budhwani