Documentation
¶
Overview ¶
Go is a tool for managing Go source code.
Usage:
go <command> [arguments]
The commands are:
bug start a bug report build compile packages and dependencies clean remove object files and cached files doc show documentation for package or symbol env print Go environment information fix update packages to use new APIs fmt gofmt (reformat) package sources generate generate Go files by processing source get download and install packages and dependencies install compile and install packages and dependencies list list packages or modules mod module maintenance run compile and run Go program test test packages tool run specified go tool version print Go version vet report likely mistakes in packages
Use "go help <command>" for more information about a command.
Additional help topics:
buildmode build modes c calling between Go and C cache build and test caching environment environment variables filetype file types go.mod the go.mod file gopath GOPATH environment variable gopath-get legacy GOPATH go get goproxy module proxy protocol importpath import path syntax modules modules, module versions, and more module-get module-aware go get packages package lists and patterns testflag testing flags testfunc testing functions
Use "go help <topic>" for more information about that topic.
Start a bug report ¶
Usage:
go bug
Bug opens the default browser and starts a new bug report. The report includes useful system information.
Compile packages and dependencies ¶
Usage:
go build [-o output] [-i] [build flags] [packages]
Build compiles the packages named by the import paths, along with their dependencies, but it does not install the results.
If the arguments to build are a list of .go files, build treats them as a list of source files specifying a single package.
When compiling a single main package, build writes the resulting executable to an output file named after the first source file ('go build ed.go rx.go' writes 'ed' or 'ed.exe') or the source code directory ('go build unix/sam' writes 'sam' or 'sam.exe'). The '.exe' suffix is added when writing a Windows executable.
When compiling multiple packages or a single non-main package, build compiles the packages but discards the resulting object, serving only as a check that the packages can be built.
When compiling packages, build ignores files that end in '_test.go'.
The -o flag, only allowed when compiling a single package, forces build to write the resulting executable or object to the named output file, instead of the default behavior described in the last two paragraphs.
The -i flag installs the packages that are dependencies of the target.
The build flags are shared by the build, clean, get, install, list, run, and test commands:
-a force rebuilding of packages that are already up-to-date. -n print the commands but do not run them. -p n the number of programs, such as build commands or test binaries, that can be run in parallel. The default is the number of CPUs available. -race enable data race detection. Supported only on linux/amd64, freebsd/amd64, darwin/amd64 and windows/amd64. -msan enable interoperation with memory sanitizer. Supported only on linux/amd64, linux/arm64 and only with Clang/LLVM as the host C compiler. -v print the names of packages as they are compiled. -work print the name of the temporary work directory and do not delete it when exiting. -x print the commands. -asmflags '[pattern=]arg list' arguments to pass on each go tool asm invocation. -buildmode mode build mode to use. See 'go help buildmode' for more. -compiler name name of compiler to use, as in runtime.Compiler (gccgo or gc). -gccgoflags '[pattern=]arg list' arguments to pass on each gccgo compiler/linker invocation. -gcflags '[pattern=]arg list' arguments to pass on each go tool compile invocation. -installsuffix suffix a suffix to use in the name of the package installation directory, in order to keep output separate from default builds. If using the -race flag, the install suffix is automatically set to race or, if set explicitly, has _race appended to it. Likewise for the -msan flag. Using a -buildmode option that requires non-default compile flags has a similar effect. -ldflags '[pattern=]arg list' arguments to pass on each go tool link invocation. -linkshared link against shared libraries previously created with -buildmode=shared. -mod mode module download mode to use: readonly or vendor. See 'go help modules' for more. -pkgdir dir install and load all packages from dir instead of the usual locations. For example, when building with a non-standard configuration, use -pkgdir to keep generated packages in a separate location. -tags 'tag list' a space-separated list of build tags to consider satisfied during the build. For more information about build tags, see the description of build constraints in the documentation for the go/build package. -toolexec 'cmd args' a program to use to invoke toolchain programs like vet and asm. For example, instead of running asm, the go command will run 'cmd args /path/to/asm <arguments for asm>'.
The -asmflags, -gccgoflags, -gcflags, and -ldflags flags accept a space-separated list of arguments to pass to an underlying tool during the build. To embed spaces in an element in the list, surround it with either single or double quotes. The argument list may be preceded by a package pattern and an equal sign, which restricts the use of that argument list to the building of packages matching that pattern (see 'go help packages' for a description of package patterns). Without a pattern, the argument list applies only to the packages named on the command line. The flags may be repeated with different patterns in order to specify different arguments for different sets of packages. If a package matches patterns given in multiple flags, the latest match on the command line wins. For example, 'go build -gcflags=-S fmt' prints the disassembly only for package fmt, while 'go build -gcflags=all=-S fmt' prints the disassembly for fmt and all its dependencies.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'. For more about where packages and binaries are installed, run 'go help gopath'. For more about calling between Go and C/C++, run 'go help c'.
Note: Build adheres to certain conventions such as those described by 'go help gopath'. Not all projects can follow these conventions, however. Installations that have their own conventions or that use a separate software build system may choose to use lower-level invocations such as 'go tool compile' and 'go tool link' to avoid some of the overheads and design decisions of the build tool.
See also: go install, go get, go clean.
Remove object files and cached files ¶
Usage:
go clean [clean flags] [build flags] [packages]
Clean removes object files from package source directories. The go command builds most objects in a temporary directory, so go clean is mainly concerned with object files left by other tools or by manual invocations of go build.
Specifically, clean removes the following files from each of the source directories corresponding to the import paths:
_obj/ old object directory, left from Makefiles _test/ old test directory, left from Makefiles _testmain.go old gotest file, left from Makefiles test.out old test log, left from Makefiles build.out old test log, left from Makefiles *.[568ao] object files, left from Makefiles DIR(.exe) from go build DIR.test(.exe) from go test -c MAINFILE(.exe) from go build MAINFILE.go *.so from SWIG
In the list, DIR represents the final path element of the directory, and MAINFILE is the base name of any Go source file in the directory that is not included when building the package.
The -i flag causes clean to remove the corresponding installed archive or binary (what 'go install' would create).
The -n flag causes clean to print the remove commands it would execute, but not run them.
The -r flag causes clean to be applied recursively to all the dependencies of the packages named by the import paths.
The -x flag causes clean to print remove commands as it executes them.
The -cache flag causes clean to remove the entire go build cache.
The -testcache flag causes clean to expire all test results in the go build cache.
The -modcache flag causes clean to remove the entire module download cache, including unpacked source code of versioned dependencies.
For more about build flags, see 'go help build'.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
Show documentation for package or symbol ¶
Usage:
go doc [-u] [-c] [package|[package.]symbol[.methodOrField]]
Doc prints the documentation comments associated with the item identified by its arguments (a package, const, func, type, var, method, or struct field) followed by a one-line summary of each of the first-level items "under" that item (package-level declarations for a package, methods for a type, etc.).
Doc accepts zero, one, or two arguments.
Given no arguments, that is, when run as
go doc
it prints the package documentation for the package in the current directory. If the package is a command (package main), the exported symbols of the package are elided from the presentation unless the -cmd flag is provided.
When run with one argument, the argument is treated as a Go-syntax-like representation of the item to be documented. What the argument selects depends on what is installed in GOROOT and GOPATH, as well as the form of the argument, which is schematically one of these:
go doc <pkg> go doc <sym>[.<methodOrField>] go doc [<pkg>.]<sym>[.<methodOrField>] go doc [<pkg>.][<sym>.]<methodOrField>
The first item in this list matched by the argument is the one whose documentation is printed. (See the examples below.) However, if the argument starts with a capital letter it is assumed to identify a symbol or method in the current directory.
For packages, the order of scanning is determined lexically in breadth-first order. That is, the package presented is the one that matches the search and is nearest the root and lexically first at its level of the hierarchy. The GOROOT tree is always scanned in its entirety before GOPATH.
If there is no package specified or matched, the package in the current directory is selected, so "go doc Foo" shows the documentation for symbol Foo in the current package.
The package path must be either a qualified path or a proper suffix of a path. The go tool's usual package mechanism does not apply: package path elements like . and ... are not implemented by go doc.
When run with two arguments, the first must be a full package path (not just a suffix), and the second is a symbol, or symbol with method or struct field. This is similar to the syntax accepted by godoc:
go doc <pkg> <sym>[.<methodOrField>]
In all forms, when matching symbols, lower-case letters in the argument match either case but upper-case letters match exactly. This means that there may be multiple matches of a lower-case argument in a package if different symbols have different cases. If this occurs, documentation for all matches is printed.
Examples:
go doc Show documentation for current package. go doc Foo Show documentation for Foo in the current package. (Foo starts with a capital letter so it cannot match a package path.) go doc encoding/json Show documentation for the encoding/json package. go doc json Shorthand for encoding/json. go doc json.Number (or go doc json.number) Show documentation and method summary for json.Number. go doc json.Number.Int64 (or go doc json.number.int64) Show documentation for json.Number's Int64 method. go doc cmd/doc Show package docs for the doc command. go doc -cmd cmd/doc Show package docs and exported symbols within the doc command. go doc template.new Show documentation for html/template's New function. (html/template is lexically before text/template) go doc text/template.new # One argument Show documentation for text/template's New function. go doc text/template new # Two arguments Show documentation for text/template's New function. At least in the current tree, these invocations all print the documentation for json.Decoder's Decode method: go doc json.Decoder.Decode go doc json.decoder.decode go doc json.decode cd go/src/encoding/json; go doc decode
Flags:
-all Show all the documentation for the package. -c Respect case when matching symbols. -cmd Treat a command (package main) like a regular package. Otherwise package main's exported symbols are hidden when showing the package's top-level documentation. -src Show the full source code for the symbol. This will display the full Go source of its declaration and definition, such as a function definition (including the body), type declaration or enclosing const block. The output may therefore include unexported details. -u Show documentation for unexported as well as exported symbols, methods, and fields.
Print Go environment information ¶
Usage:
go env [-json] [var ...]
Env prints Go environment information.
By default env prints information as a shell script (on Windows, a batch file). If one or more variable names is given as arguments, env prints the value of each named variable on its own line.
The -json flag prints the environment in JSON format instead of as a shell script.
For more about environment variables, see 'go help environment'.
Update packages to use new APIs ¶
Usage:
go fix [packages]
Fix runs the Go fix command on the packages named by the import paths.
For more about fix, see 'go doc cmd/fix'. For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
To run fix with specific options, run 'go tool fix'.
See also: go fmt, go vet.
Gofmt (reformat) package sources ¶
Usage:
go fmt [-n] [-x] [packages]
Fmt runs the command 'gofmt -l -w' on the packages named by the import paths. It prints the names of the files that are modified.
For more about gofmt, see 'go doc cmd/gofmt'. For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
The -n flag prints commands that would be executed. The -x flag prints commands as they are executed.
To run gofmt with specific options, run gofmt itself.
See also: go fix, go vet.
Generate Go files by processing source ¶
Usage:
go generate [-run regexp] [-n] [-v] [-x] [build flags] [file.go... | packages]
Generate runs commands described by directives within existing files. Those commands can run any process but the intent is to create or update Go source files.
Go generate is never run automatically by go build, go get, go test, and so on. It must be run explicitly.
Go generate scans the file for directives, which are lines of the form,
//go:generate command argument...
(note: no leading spaces and no space in "//go") where command is the generator to be run, corresponding to an executable file that can be run locally. It must either be in the shell path (gofmt), a fully qualified path (/usr/you/bin/mytool), or a command alias, described below.
To convey to humans and machine tools that code is generated, generated source should have a line early in the file that matches the following regular expression (in Go syntax):
^// Code generated .* DO NOT EDIT\.$
Note that go generate does not parse the file, so lines that look like directives in comments or multiline strings will be treated as directives.
The arguments to the directive are space-separated tokens or double-quoted strings passed to the generator as individual arguments when it is run.
Quoted strings use Go syntax and are evaluated before execution; a quoted string appears as a single argument to the generator.
Go generate sets several variables when it runs the generator:
$GOARCH The execution architecture (arm, amd64, etc.) $GOOS The execution operating system (linux, windows, etc.) $GOFILE The base name of the file. $GOLINE The line number of the directive in the source file. $GOPACKAGE The name of the package of the file containing the directive. $DOLLAR A dollar sign.
Other than variable substitution and quoted-string evaluation, no special processing such as "globbing" is performed on the command line.
As a last step before running the command, any invocations of any environment variables with alphanumeric names, such as $GOFILE or $HOME, are expanded throughout the command line. The syntax for variable expansion is $NAME on all operating systems. Due to the order of evaluation, variables are expanded even inside quoted strings. If the variable NAME is not set, $NAME expands to the empty string.
A directive of the form,
//go:generate -command xxx args...
specifies, for the remainder of this source file only, that the string xxx represents the command identified by the arguments. This can be used to create aliases or to handle multiword generators. For example,
//go:generate -command foo go tool foo
specifies that the command "foo" represents the generator "go tool foo".
Generate processes packages in the order given on the command line, one at a time. If the command line lists .go files, they are treated as a single package. Within a package, generate processes the source files in a package in file name order, one at a time. Within a source file, generate runs generators in the order they appear in the file, one at a time.
If any generator returns an error exit status, "go generate" skips all further processing for that package.
The generator is run in the package's source directory.
Go generate accepts one specific flag:
-run="" if non-empty, specifies a regular expression to select directives whose full original source text (excluding any trailing spaces and final newline) matches the expression.
It also accepts the standard build flags including -v, -n, and -x. The -v flag prints the names of packages and files as they are processed. The -n flag prints commands that would be executed. The -x flag prints commands as they are executed.
For more about build flags, see 'go help build'.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
Download and install packages and dependencies ¶
Usage:
go get [-d] [-f] [-t] [-u] [-v] [-fix] [-insecure] [build flags] [packages]
Get downloads the packages named by the import paths, along with their dependencies. It then installs the named packages, like 'go install'.
The -d flag instructs get to stop after downloading the packages; that is, it instructs get not to install the packages.
The -f flag, valid only when -u is set, forces get -u not to verify that each package has been checked out from the source control repository implied by its import path. This can be useful if the source is a local fork of the original.
The -fix flag instructs get to run the fix tool on the downloaded packages before resolving dependencies or building the code.
The -insecure flag permits fetching from repositories and resolving custom domains using insecure schemes such as HTTP. Use with caution.
The -t flag instructs get to also download the packages required to build the tests for the specified packages.
The -u flag instructs get to use the network to update the named packages and their dependencies. By default, get uses the network to check out missing packages but does not use it to look for updates to existing packages.
The -v flag enables verbose progress and debug output.
Get also accepts build flags to control the installation. See 'go help build'.
When checking out a new package, get creates the target directory GOPATH/src/<import-path>. If the GOPATH contains multiple entries, get uses the first one. For more details see: 'go help gopath'.
When checking out or updating a package, get looks for a branch or tag that matches the locally installed version of Go. The most important rule is that if the local installation is running version "go1", get searches for a branch or tag named "go1". If no such version exists it retrieves the default branch of the package.
When go get checks out or updates a Git repository, it also updates any git submodules referenced by the repository.
Get never checks out or updates code stored in vendor directories.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
For more about how 'go get' finds source code to download, see 'go help importpath'.
This text describes the behavior of get when using GOPATH to manage source code and dependencies. If instead the go command is running in module-aware mode, the details of get's flags and effects change, as does 'go help get'. See 'go help modules' and 'go help module-get'.
See also: go build, go install, go clean.
Compile and install packages and dependencies ¶
Usage:
go install [-i] [build flags] [packages]
Install compiles and installs the packages named by the import paths.
The -i flag installs the dependencies of the named packages as well.
For more about the build flags, see 'go help build'. For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
See also: go build, go get, go clean.
List packages or modules ¶
Usage:
go list [-f format] [-json] [-m] [list flags] [build flags] [packages]
List lists the named packages, one per line. The most commonly-used flags are -f and -json, which control the form of the output printed for each package. Other list flags, documented below, control more specific details.
The default output shows the package import path:
bytes encoding/json github.com/gorilla/mux golang.org/x/net/html
The -f flag specifies an alternate format for the list, using the syntax of package template. The default output is equivalent to -f '{{.ImportPath}}'. The struct being passed to the template is:
type Package struct {
Dir string // directory containing package sources
ImportPath string // import path of package in dir
ImportComment string // path in import comment on package statement
Name string // package name
Doc string // package documentation string
Target string // install path
Shlib string // the shared library that contains this package (only set when -linkshared)
Goroot bool // is this package in the Go root?
Standard bool // is this package part of the standard Go library?
Stale bool // would 'go install' do anything for this package?
StaleReason string // explanation for Stale==true
Root string // Go root or Go path dir containing this package
ConflictDir string // this directory shadows Dir in $GOPATH
BinaryOnly bool // binary-only package: cannot be recompiled from sources
ForTest string // package is only for use in named test
Export string // file containing export data (when using -export)
Module *Module // info about package's containing module, if any (can be nil)
Match []string // command-line patterns matching this package
DepOnly bool // package is only a dependency, not explicitly listed
// Source files
GoFiles []string // .go source files (excluding CgoFiles, TestGoFiles, XTestGoFiles)
CgoFiles []string // .go source files that import "C"
CompiledGoFiles []string // .go files presented to compiler (when using -compiled)
IgnoredGoFiles []string // .go source files ignored due to build constraints
CFiles []string // .c source files
CXXFiles []string // .cc, .cxx and .cpp source files
MFiles []string // .m source files
HFiles []string // .h, .hh, .hpp and .hxx source files
FFiles []string // .f, .F, .for and .f90 Fortran source files
SFiles []string // .s source files
SwigFiles []string // .swig files
SwigCXXFiles []string // .swigcxx files
SysoFiles []string // .syso object files to add to archive
TestGoFiles []string // _test.go files in package
XTestGoFiles []string // _test.go files outside package
// Cgo directives
CgoCFLAGS []string // cgo: flags for C compiler
CgoCPPFLAGS []string // cgo: flags for C preprocessor
CgoCXXFLAGS []string // cgo: flags for C++ compiler
CgoFFLAGS []string // cgo: flags for Fortran compiler
CgoLDFLAGS []string // cgo: flags for linker
CgoPkgConfig []string // cgo: pkg-config names
// Dependency information
Imports []string // import paths used by this package
ImportMap map[string]string // map from source import to ImportPath (identity entries omitted)
Deps []string // all (recursively) imported dependencies
TestImports []string // imports from TestGoFiles
XTestImports []string // imports from XTestGoFiles
// Error information
Incomplete bool // this package or a dependency has an error
Error *PackageError // error loading package
DepsErrors []*PackageError // errors loading dependencies
}
Packages stored in vendor directories report an ImportPath that includes the path to the vendor directory (for example, "d/vendor/p" instead of "p"), so that the ImportPath uniquely identifies a given copy of a package. The Imports, Deps, TestImports, and XTestImports lists also contain these expanded import paths. See golang.org/s/go15vendor for more about vendoring.
The error information, if any, is
type PackageError struct {
ImportStack []string // shortest path from package named on command line to this one
Pos string // position of error (if present, file:line:col)
Err string // the error itself
}
The module information is a Module struct, defined in the discussion of list -m below.
The template function "join" calls strings.Join.
The template function "context" returns the build context, defined as:
type Context struct {
GOARCH string // target architecture
GOOS string // target operating system
GOROOT string // Go root
GOPATH string // Go path
CgoEnabled bool // whether cgo can be used
UseAllFiles bool // use files regardless of +build lines, file names
Compiler string // compiler to assume when computing target paths
BuildTags []string // build constraints to match in +build lines
ReleaseTags []string // releases the current release is compatible with
InstallSuffix string // suffix to use in the name of the install dir
}
For more information about the meaning of these fields see the documentation for the go/build package's Context type.
The -json flag causes the package data to be printed in JSON format instead of using the template format.
The -compiled flag causes list to set CompiledGoFiles to the Go source files presented to the compiler. Typically this means that it repeats the files listed in GoFiles and then also adds the Go code generated by processing CgoFiles and SwigFiles. The Imports list contains the union of all imports from both GoFiles and CompiledGoFiles.
The -deps flag causes list to iterate over not just the named packages but also all their dependencies. It visits them in a depth-first post-order traversal, so that a package is listed only after all its dependencies. Packages not explicitly listed on the command line will have the DepOnly field set to true.
The -e flag changes the handling of erroneous packages, those that cannot be found or are malformed. By default, the list command prints an error to standard error for each erroneous package and omits the packages from consideration during the usual printing. With the -e flag, the list command never prints errors to standard error and instead processes the erroneous packages with the usual printing. Erroneous packages will have a non-empty ImportPath and a non-nil Error field; other information may or may not be missing (zeroed).
The -export flag causes list to set the Export field to the name of a file containing up-to-date export information for the given package.
The -find flag causes list to identify the named packages but not resolve their dependencies: the Imports and Deps lists will be empty.
The -test flag causes list to report not only the named packages but also their test binaries (for packages with tests), to convey to source code analysis tools exactly how test binaries are constructed. The reported import path for a test binary is the import path of the package followed by a ".test" suffix, as in "math/rand.test". When building a test, it is sometimes necessary to rebuild certain dependencies specially for that test (most commonly the tested package itself). The reported import path of a package recompiled for a particular test binary is followed by a space and the name of the test binary in brackets, as in "math/rand math/rand.test" or "regexp [sort.test]". The ForTest field is also set to the name of the package being tested ("math/rand" or "sort" in the previous examples).
The Dir, Target, Shlib, Root, ConflictDir, and Export file paths are all absolute paths.
By default, the lists GoFiles, CgoFiles, and so on hold names of files in Dir (that is, paths relative to Dir, not absolute paths). The generated files added when using the -compiled and -test flags are absolute paths referring to cached copies of generated Go source files. Although they are Go source files, the paths may not end in ".go".
The -m flag causes list to list modules instead of packages.
When listing modules, the -f flag still specifies a format template applied to a Go struct, but now a Module struct:
type Module struct {
Path string // module path
Version string // module version
Versions []string // available module versions (with -versions)
Replace *Module // replaced by this module
Time *time.Time // time version was created
Update *Module // available update, if any (with -u)
Main bool // is this the main module?
Indirect bool // is this module only an indirect dependency of main module?
Dir string // directory holding files for this module, if any
GoMod string // path to go.mod file for this module, if any
Error *ModuleError // error loading module
}
type ModuleError struct {
Err string // the error itself
}
The default output is to print the module path and then information about the version and replacement if any. For example, 'go list -m all' might print:
my/main/module golang.org/x/text v0.3.0 => /tmp/text rsc.io/pdf v0.1.1
The Module struct has a String method that formats this line of output, so that the default format is equivalent to -f '{{.String}}'.
Note that when a module has been replaced, its Replace field describes the replacement module, and its Dir field is set to the replacement's source code, if present. (That is, if Replace is non-nil, then Dir is set to Replace.Dir, with no access to the replaced source code.)
The -u flag adds information about available upgrades. When the latest version of a given module is newer than the current one, list -u sets the Module's Update field to information about the newer module. The Module's String method indicates an available upgrade by formatting the newer version in brackets after the current version. For example, 'go list -m -u all' might print:
my/main/module golang.org/x/text v0.3.0 [v0.4.0] => /tmp/text rsc.io/pdf v0.1.1 [v0.1.2]
(For tools, 'go list -m -u -json all' may be more convenient to parse.)
The -versions flag causes list to set the Module's Versions field to a list of all known versions of that module, ordered according to semantic versioning, earliest to latest. The flag also changes the default output format to display the module path followed by the space-separated version list.
The arguments to list -m are interpreted as a list of modules, not packages. The main module is the module containing the current directory. The active modules are the main module and its dependencies. With no arguments, list -m shows the main module. With arguments, list -m shows the modules specified by the arguments. Any of the active modules can be specified by its module path. The special pattern "all" specifies all the active modules, first the main module and then dependencies sorted by module path. A pattern containing "..." specifies the active modules whose module paths match the pattern. A query of the form path@version specifies the result of that query, which is not limited to active modules. See 'go help modules' for more about module queries.
The template function "module" takes a single string argument that must be a module path or query and returns the specified module as a Module struct. If an error occurs, the result will be a Module struct with a non-nil Error field.
For more about build flags, see 'go help build'.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
For more about modules, see 'go help modules'.
Module maintenance ¶
Go mod provides access to operations on modules.
Note that support for modules is built into all the go commands, not just 'go mod'. For example, day-to-day adding, removing, upgrading, and downgrading of dependencies should be done using 'go get'. See 'go help modules' for an overview of module functionality.
Usage:
go mod <command> [arguments]
The commands are:
download download modules to local cache edit edit go.mod from tools or scripts graph print module requirement graph init initialize new module in current directory tidy add missing and remove unused modules vendor make vendored copy of dependencies verify verify dependencies have expected content why explain why packages or modules are needed
Use "go help mod <command>" for more information about a command.
Download modules to local cache ¶
Usage:
go mod download [-json] [modules]
Download downloads the named modules, which can be module patterns selecting dependencies of the main module or module queries of the form path@version. With no arguments, download applies to all dependencies of the main module.
The go command will automatically download modules as needed during ordinary execution. The "go mod download" command is useful mainly for pre-filling the local cache or to compute the answers for a Go module proxy.
By default, download reports errors to standard error but is otherwise silent. The -json flag causes download to print a sequence of JSON objects to standard output, describing each downloaded module (or failure), corresponding to this Go struct:
type Module struct {
Path string // module path
Version string // module version
Error string // error loading module
Info string // absolute path to cached .info file
GoMod string // absolute path to cached .mod file
Zip string // absolute path to cached .zip file
Dir string // absolute path to cached source root directory
Sum string // checksum for path, version (as in go.sum)
GoModSum string // checksum for go.mod (as in go.sum)
}
See 'go help modules' for more about module queries.
Edit go.mod from tools or scripts ¶
Usage:
go mod edit [editing flags] [go.mod]
Edit provides a command-line interface for editing go.mod, for use primarily by tools or scripts. It reads only go.mod; it does not look up information about the modules involved. By default, edit reads and writes the go.mod file of the main module, but a different target file can be specified after the editing flags.
The editing flags specify a sequence of editing operations.
The -fmt flag reformats the go.mod file without making other changes. This reformatting is also implied by any other modifications that use or rewrite the go.mod file. The only time this flag is needed is if no other flags are specified, as in 'go mod edit -fmt'.
The -module flag changes the module's path (the go.mod file's module line).
The -require=path@version and -droprequire=path flags add and drop a requirement on the given module path and version. Note that -require overrides any existing requirements on path. These flags are mainly for tools that understand the module graph. Users should prefer 'go get path@version' or 'go get path@none', which make other go.mod adjustments as needed to satisfy constraints imposed by other modules.
The -exclude=path@version and -dropexclude=path@version flags add and drop an exclusion for the given module path and version. Note that -exclude=path@version is a no-op if that exclusion already exists.
The -replace=old[@v]=new[@v] and -dropreplace=old[@v] flags add and drop a replacement of the given module path and version pair. If the @v in old@v is omitted, the replacement applies to all versions with the old module path. If the @v in new@v is omitted, the new path should be a local module root directory, not a module path. Note that -replace overrides any existing replacements for old[@v].
The -require, -droprequire, -exclude, -dropexclude, -replace, and -dropreplace editing flags may be repeated, and the changes are applied in the order given.
The -print flag prints the final go.mod in its text format instead of writing it back to go.mod.
The -json flag prints the final go.mod file in JSON format instead of writing it back to go.mod. The JSON output corresponds to these Go types:
type Module struct {
Path string
Version string
}
type GoMod struct {
Module Module
Require []Require
Exclude []Module
Replace []Replace
}
type Require struct {
Path string
Version string
Indirect bool
}
type Replace struct {
Old Module
New Module
}
Note that this only describes the go.mod file itself, not other modules referred to indirectly. For the full set of modules available to a build, use 'go list -m -json all'.
For example, a tool can obtain the go.mod as a data structure by parsing the output of 'go mod edit -json' and can then make changes by invoking 'go mod edit' with -require, -exclude, and so on.
Print module requirement graph ¶
Usage:
go mod graph
Graph prints the module requirement graph (with replacements applied) in text form. Each line in the output has two space-separated fields: a module and one of its requirements. Each module is identified as a string of the form path@version, except for the main module, which has no @version suffix.
Initialize new module in current directory ¶
Usage:
go mod init [module]
Init initializes and writes a new go.mod to the current directory, in effect creating a new module rooted at the current directory. The file go.mod must not already exist. If possible, init will guess the module path from import comments (see 'go help importpath') or from version control configuration. To override this guess, supply the module path as an argument.
Add missing and remove unused modules ¶
Usage:
go mod tidy [-v]
Tidy makes sure go.mod matches the source code in the module. It adds any missing modules necessary to build the current module's packages and dependencies, and it removes unused modules that don't provide any relevant packages. It also adds any missing entries to go.sum and removes any unnecessary ones.
The -v flag causes tidy to print information about removed modules to standard error.
Make vendored copy of dependencies ¶
Usage:
go mod vendor [-v]
Vendor resets the main module's vendor directory to include all packages needed to build and test all the main module's packages. It does not include test code for vendored packages.
The -v flag causes vendor to print the names of vendored modules and packages to standard error.
Verify dependencies have expected content ¶
Usage:
go mod verify
Verify checks that the dependencies of the current module, which are stored in a local downloaded source cache, have not been modified since being downloaded. If all the modules are unmodified, verify prints "all modules verified." Otherwise it reports which modules have been changed and causes 'go mod' to exit with a non-zero status.
Explain why packages or modules are needed ¶
Usage:
go mod why [-m] [-vendor] packages...
Why shows a shortest path in the import graph from the main module to each of the listed packages. If the -m flag is given, why treats the arguments as a list of modules and finds a path to any package in each of the modules.
By default, why queries the graph of packages matched by "go list all", which includes tests for reachable packages. The -vendor flag causes why to exclude tests of dependencies.
The output is a sequence of stanzas, one for each package or module name on the command line, separated by blank lines. Each stanza begins with a comment line "# package" or "# module" giving the target package or module. Subsequent lines give a path through the import graph, one package per line. If the package or module is not referenced from the main module, the stanza will display a single parenthesized note indicating that fact.
For example:
$ go mod why golang.org/x/text/language golang.org/x/text/encoding # golang.org/x/text/language rsc.io/quote rsc.io/sampler golang.org/x/text/language # golang.org/x/text/encoding (main module does not need package golang.org/x/text/encoding) $
Compile and run Go program ¶
Usage:
go run [build flags] [-exec xprog] package [arguments...]
Run compiles and runs the named main Go package. Typically the package is specified as a list of .go source files, but it may also be an import path, file system path, or pattern matching a single known package, as in 'go run .' or 'go run my/cmd'.
By default, 'go run' runs the compiled binary directly: 'a.out arguments...'. If the -exec flag is given, 'go run' invokes the binary using xprog:
'xprog a.out arguments...'.
If the -exec flag is not given, GOOS or GOARCH is different from the system default, and a program named go_$GOOS_$GOARCH_exec can be found on the current search path, 'go run' invokes the binary using that program, for example 'go_nacl_386_exec a.out arguments...'. This allows execution of cross-compiled programs when a simulator or other execution method is available.
The exit status of Run is not the exit status of the compiled binary.
For more about build flags, see 'go help build'. For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
See also: go build.
Test packages ¶
Usage:
go test [build/test flags] [packages] [build/test flags & test binary flags]
'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. Each listed package causes the execution of a separate test binary. Files whose names begin with "_" (including "_test.go") or "." are ignored.
Test files that declare a package with the suffix "_test" will be compiled as a separate package, and then linked and run with the main test binary.
The go tool will ignore a directory named "testdata", making it available to hold ancillary data needed by the tests.
As part of building a test binary, go test runs go vet on the package and its test source files to identify significant problems. If go vet finds any problems, go test reports those and does not run the test binary. Only a high-confidence subset of the default go vet checks are used. That subset is: 'atomic', 'bool', 'buildtags', 'nilfunc', and 'printf'. You can see the documentation for these and other vet tests via "go doc cmd/vet". To disable the running of go vet, use the -vet=off flag.
All test output and summary lines are printed to the go command's standard output, even if the test printed them to its own standard error. (The go command's standard error is reserved for printing errors building the tests.)
Go test runs in two different modes:
The first, called local directory mode, occurs when go test is invoked with no package arguments (for example, 'go test' or 'go test -v'). In this mode, go test compiles the package sources and tests found in the current directory and then runs the resulting test binary. In this mode, caching (discussed below) is disabled. After the package test finishes, go test prints a summary line showing the test status ('ok' or 'FAIL'), package name, and elapsed time.
The second, called package list mode, occurs when go test is invoked with explicit package arguments (for example 'go test math', 'go test ./...', and even 'go test .'). In this mode, go test compiles and tests each of the packages listed on the command line. If a package test passes, go test prints only the final 'ok' summary line. If a package test fails, go test prints the full test output. If invoked with the -bench or -v flag, go test prints the full output even for passing package tests, in order to display the requested benchmark results or verbose logging.
In package list mode only, go test caches successful package test results to avoid unnecessary repeated running of tests. When the result of a test can be recovered from the cache, go test will redisplay the previous output instead of running the test binary again. When this happens, go test prints '(cached)' in place of the elapsed time in the summary line.
The rule for a match in the cache is that the run involves the same test binary and the flags on the command line come entirely from a restricted set of 'cacheable' test flags, defined as -cpu, -list, -parallel, -run, -short, and -v. If a run of go test has any test or non-test flags outside this set, the result is not cached. To disable test caching, use any test flag or argument other than the cacheable flags. The idiomatic way to disable test caching explicitly is to use -count=1. Tests that open files within the package's source root (usually $GOPATH) or that consult environment variables only match future runs in which the files and environment variables are unchanged. A cached test result is treated as executing in no time at all, so a successful package test result will be cached and reused regardless of -timeout setting.
In addition to the build flags, the flags handled by 'go test' itself are:
-args
Pass the remainder of the command line (everything after -args)
to the test binary, uninterpreted and unchanged.
Because this flag consumes the remainder of the command line,
the package list (if present) must appear before this flag.
-c
Compile the test binary to pkg.test but do not run it
(where pkg is the last element of the package's import path).
The file name can be changed with the -o flag.
-exec xprog
Run the test binary using xprog. The behavior is the same as
in 'go run'. See 'go help run' for details.
-i
Install packages that are dependencies of the test.
Do not run the test.
-json
Convert test output to JSON suitable for automated processing.
See 'go doc test2json' for the encoding details.
-o file
Compile the test binary to the named file.
The test still runs (unless -c or -i is specified).
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.
Run specified go tool ¶
Usage:
go tool [-n] command [args...]
Tool runs the go tool command identified by the arguments. With no arguments it prints the list of known tools.
The -n flag causes tool to print the command that would be executed but not execute it.
For more about each tool command, see 'go doc cmd/<command>'.
Print Go version ¶
Usage:
go version
Version prints the Go version, as reported by runtime.Version.
Report likely mistakes in packages ¶
Usage:
go vet [-n] [-x] [build flags] [vet flags] [packages]
Vet runs the Go vet command on the packages named by the import paths.
For more about vet and its flags, see 'go doc cmd/vet'. For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
The -n flag prints commands that would be executed. The -x flag prints commands as they are executed.
The build flags supported by go vet are those that control package resolution and execution, such as -n, -x, -v, -tags, and -toolexec. For more about these flags, see 'go help build'.
See also: go fmt, go fix.
Build modes ¶
The 'go build' and 'go install' commands take a -buildmode argument which indicates which kind of object file is to be built. Currently supported values are:
-buildmode=archive Build the listed non-main packages into .a files. Packages named main are ignored. -buildmode=c-archive Build the listed main package, plus all packages it imports, into a C archive file. The only callable symbols will be those functions exported using a cgo //export comment. Requires exactly one main package to be listed. -buildmode=c-shared Build the listed main package, plus all packages it imports, into a C shared library. The only callable symbols will be those functions exported using a cgo //export comment. Requires exactly one main package to be listed. -buildmode=default Listed main packages are built into executables and listed non-main packages are built into .a files (the default behavior). -buildmode=shared Combine all the listed non-main packages into a single shared library that will be used when building with the -linkshared option. Packages named main are ignored. -buildmode=exe Build the listed main packages and everything they import into executables. Packages not named main are ignored. -buildmode=pie Build the listed main packages and everything they import into position independent executables (PIE). Packages not named main are ignored. -buildmode=plugin Build the listed main packages, plus all packages that they import, into a Go plugin. Packages not named main are ignored.
Calling between Go and C ¶
There are two different ways to call between Go and C/C++ code.
The first is the cgo tool, which is part of the Go distribution. For information on how to use it see the cgo documentation (go doc cmd/cgo).
The second is the SWIG program, which is a general tool for interfacing between languages. For information on SWIG see http://swig.org/. When running go build, any file with a .swig extension will be passed to SWIG. Any file with a .swigcxx extension will be passed to SWIG with the -c++ option.
When either cgo or SWIG is used, go build will pass any .c, .m, .s, or .S files to the C compiler, and any .cc, .cpp, .cxx files to the C++ compiler. The CC or CXX environment variables may be set to determine the C or C++ compiler, respectively, to use.
Build and test caching ¶
The go command caches build outputs for reuse in future builds. The default location for cache data is a subdirectory named go-build in the standard user cache directory for the current operating system. Setting the GOCACHE environment variable overrides this default, and running 'go env GOCACHE' prints the current cache directory. You can set the variable to 'off' to disable the cache.
The go command periodically deletes cached data that has not been used recently. Running 'go clean -cache' deletes all cached data.
The build cache correctly accounts for changes to Go source files, compilers, compiler options, and so on: cleaning the cache explicitly should not be necessary in typical use. However, the build cache does not detect changes to C libraries imported with cgo. If you have made changes to the C libraries on your system, you will need to clean the cache explicitly or else use the -a build flag (see 'go help build') to force rebuilding of packages that depend on the updated C libraries.
The go command also caches successful package test results. See 'go help test' for details. Running 'go clean -testcache' removes all cached test results (but not cached build results).
The GODEBUG environment variable can enable printing of debugging information about the state of the cache:
GODEBUG=gocacheverify=1 causes the go command to bypass the use of any cache entries and instead rebuild everything and check that the results match existing cache entries.
GODEBUG=gocachehash=1 causes the go command to print the inputs for all of the content hashes it uses to construct cache lookup keys. The output is voluminous but can be useful for debugging the cache.
GODEBUG=gocachetest=1 causes the go command to print details of its decisions about whether to reuse a cached test result.
Environment variables ¶
The go command, and the tools it invokes, examine a few different environment variables. For many of these, you can see the default value of on your system by running 'go env NAME', where NAME is the name of the variable.
General-purpose environment variables:
GCCGO The gccgo command to run for 'go build -compiler=gccgo'. GOARCH The architecture, or processor, for which to compile code. Examples are amd64, 386, arm, ppc64. GOBIN The directory where 'go install' will install a command. GOCACHE The directory where the go command will store cached information for reuse in future builds. GOFLAGS A space-separated list of -flag=value settings to apply to go commands by default, when the given flag is known by the current command. Flags listed on the command-line are applied after this list and therefore override it. GOOS The operating system for which to compile code. Examples are linux, darwin, windows, netbsd. GOPATH For more details see: 'go help gopath'. GOPROXY URL of Go module proxy. See 'go help goproxy'. GORACE Options for the race detector. See https://golang.org/doc/articles/race_detector.html. GOROOT The root of the go tree. GOTMPDIR The directory where the go command will write temporary source files, packages, and binaries.
Each entry in the GOFLAGS list must be a standalone flag. Because the entries are space-separated, flag values must not contain spaces. In some cases, you can provide multiple flag values instead: for example, to set '-ldflags=-s -w' you can use 'GOFLAGS=-ldflags=-s -ldflags=-w'.
Environment variables for use with cgo:
CC The command to use to compile C code. CGO_ENABLED Whether the cgo command is supported. Either 0 or 1. CGO_CFLAGS Flags that cgo will pass to the compiler when compiling C code. CGO_CFLAGS_ALLOW A regular expression specifying additional flags to allow to appear in #cgo CFLAGS source code directives. Does not apply to the CGO_CFLAGS environment variable. CGO_CFLAGS_DISALLOW A regular expression specifying flags that must be disallowed from appearing in #cgo CFLAGS source code directives. Does not apply to the CGO_CFLAGS environment variable. CGO_CPPFLAGS, CGO_CPPFLAGS_ALLOW, CGO_CPPFLAGS_DISALLOW Like CGO_CFLAGS, CGO_CFLAGS_ALLOW, and CGO_CFLAGS_DISALLOW, but for the C preprocessor. CGO_CXXFLAGS, CGO_CXXFLAGS_ALLOW, CGO_CXXFLAGS_DISALLOW Like CGO_CFLAGS, CGO_CFLAGS_ALLOW, and CGO_CFLAGS_DISALLOW, but for the C++ compiler. CGO_FFLAGS, CGO_FFLAGS_ALLOW, CGO_FFLAGS_DISALLOW Like CGO_CFLAGS, CGO_CFLAGS_ALLOW, and CGO_CFLAGS_DISALLOW, but for the Fortran compiler. CGO_LDFLAGS, CGO_LDFLAGS_ALLOW, CGO_LDFLAGS_DISALLOW Like CGO_CFLAGS, CGO_CFLAGS_ALLOW, and CGO_CFLAGS_DISALLOW, but for the linker. CXX The command to use to compile C++ code. PKG_CONFIG Path to pkg-config tool.
Architecture-specific environment variables:
GOARM
For GOARCH=arm, the ARM architecture for which to compile.
Valid values are 5, 6, 7.
GO386
For GOARCH=386, the floating point instruction set.
Valid values are 387, sse2.
GOMIPS
For GOARCH=mips{,le}, whether to use floating point instructions.
Valid values are hardfloat (default), softfloat.
GOMIPS64
For GOARCH=mips64{,le}, whether to use floating point instructions.
Valid values are hardfloat (default), softfloat.
Special-purpose environment variables:
GCCGOTOOLDIR If set, where to find gccgo tools, such as cgo. The default is based on how gccgo was configured. GOROOT_FINAL The root of the installed Go tree, when it is installed in a location other than where it is built. File names in stack traces are rewritten from GOROOT to GOROOT_FINAL. GO_EXTLINK_ENABLED Whether the linker should use external linking mode when using -linkmode=auto with code that uses cgo. Set to 0 to disable external linking mode, 1 to enable it. GIT_ALLOW_PROTOCOL Defined by Git. A colon-separated list of schemes that are allowed to be used with git fetch/clone. If set, any scheme not explicitly mentioned will be considered insecure by 'go get'.
Additional information available from 'go env' but not read from the environment:
GOEXE
The executable file name suffix (".exe" on Windows, "" on other systems).
GOHOSTARCH
The architecture (GOARCH) of the Go toolchain binaries.
GOHOSTOS
The operating system (GOOS) of the Go toolchain binaries.
GOMOD
The absolute path to the go.mod of the main module,
or the empty string if not using modules.
GOTOOLDIR
The directory where the go tools (compile, cover, doc, etc...) are installed.
File types ¶
The go command examines the contents of a restricted set of files in each directory. It identifies which files to examine based on the extension of the file name. These extensions are:
.go Go source files. .c, .h C source files. If the package uses cgo or SWIG, these will be compiled with the OS-native compiler (typically gcc); otherwise they will trigger an error. .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .hh, .hpp, .hxx C++ source files. Only useful with cgo or SWIG, and always compiled with the OS-native compiler. .m Objective-C source files. Only useful with cgo, and always compiled with the OS-native compiler. .s, .S Assembler source files. If the package uses cgo or SWIG, these will be assembled with the OS-native assembler (typically gcc (sic)); otherwise they will be assembled with the Go assembler. .swig, .swigcxx SWIG definition files. .syso System object files.
Files of each of these types except .syso may contain build constraints, but the go command stops scanning for build constraints at the first item in the file that is not a blank line or //-style line comment. See the go/build package documentation for more details.
Non-test Go source files can also include a //go:binary-only-package comment, indicating that the package sources are included for documentation only and must not be used to build the package binary. This enables distribution of Go packages in their compiled form alone. Even binary-only packages require accurate import blocks listing required dependencies, so that those dependencies can be supplied when linking the resulting command.
The go.mod file ¶
A module version is defined by a tree of source files, with a go.mod file in its root. When the go command is run, it looks in the current directory and then successive parent directories to find the go.mod marking the root of the main (current) module.
The go.mod file itself is line-oriented, with // comments but no /* */ comments. Each line holds a single directive, made up of a verb followed by arguments. For example:
module my/thing require other/thing v1.0.2 require new/thing v2.3.4 exclude old/thing v1.2.3 replace bad/thing v1.4.5 => good/thing v1.4.5
The verbs are module, to define the module path; require, to require a particular module at a given version or later; exclude, to exclude a particular module version from use; and replace, to replace a module version with a different module version. Exclude and replace apply only in the main module's go.mod and are ignored in dependencies. See https://research.swtch.com/vgo-mvs for details.
The leading verb can be factored out of adjacent lines to create a block, like in Go imports:
require ( new/thing v2.3.4 old/thing v1.2.3 )
The go.mod file is designed both to be edited directly and to be easily updated by tools. The 'go mod edit' command can be used to parse and edit the go.mod file from programs and tools. See 'go help mod edit'.
The go command automatically updates go.mod each time it uses the module graph, to make sure go.mod always accurately reflects reality and is properly formatted. For example, consider this go.mod file:
module M
require (
A v1
B v1.0.0
C v1.0.0
D v1.2.3
E dev
)
exclude D v1.2.3
The update rewrites non-canonical version identifiers to semver form, so A's v1 becomes v1.0.0 and E's dev becomes the pseudo-version for the latest commit on the dev branch, perhaps v0.0.0-20180523231146-b3f5c0f6e5f1.
The update modifies requirements to respect exclusions, so the requirement on the excluded D v1.2.3 is updated to use the next available version of D, perhaps D v1.2.4 or D v1.3.0.
The update removes redundant or misleading requirements. For example, if A v1.0.0 itself requires B v1.2.0 and C v1.0.0, then go.mod's requirement of B v1.0.0 is misleading (superseded by A's need for v1.2.0), and its requirement of C v1.0.0 is redundant (implied by A's need for the same version), so both will be removed. If module M contains packages that directly import packages from B or C, then the requirements will be kept but updated to the actual versions being used.
Finally, the update reformats the go.mod in a canonical formatting, so that future mechanical changes will result in minimal diffs.
Because the module graph defines the meaning of import statements, any commands that load packages also use and therefore update go.mod, including go build, go get, go install, go list, go test, go mod graph, go mod tidy, and go mod why.
GOPATH environment variable ¶
The Go path is used to resolve import statements. It is implemented by and documented in the go/build package.
The GOPATH environment variable lists places to look for Go code. On Unix, the value is a colon-separated string. On Windows, the value is a semicolon-separated string. On Plan 9, the value is a list.
If the environment variable is unset, GOPATH defaults to a subdirectory named "go" in the user's home directory ($HOME/go on Unix, %USERPROFILE%\go on Windows), unless that directory holds a Go distribution. Run "go env GOPATH" to see the current GOPATH.
See https://golang.org/wiki/SettingGOPATH to set a custom GOPATH.
Each directory listed in GOPATH must have a prescribed structure:
The src directory holds source code. The path below src determines the import path or executable name.
The pkg directory holds installed package objects. As in the Go tree, each target operating system and architecture pair has its own subdirectory of pkg (pkg/GOOS_GOARCH).
If DIR is a directory listed in the GOPATH, a package with source in DIR/src/foo/bar can be imported as "foo/bar" and has its compiled form installed to "DIR/pkg/GOOS_GOARCH/foo/bar.a".
The bin directory holds compiled commands. Each command is named for its source directory, but only the final element, not the entire path. That is, the command with source in DIR/src/foo/quux is installed into DIR/bin/quux, not DIR/bin/foo/quux. The "foo/" prefix is stripped so that you can add DIR/bin to your PATH to get at the installed commands. If the GOBIN environment variable is set, commands are installed to the directory it names instead of DIR/bin. GOBIN must be an absolute path.
Here's an example directory layout:
GOPATH=/home/user/go
/home/user/go/
src/
foo/
bar/ (go code in package bar)
x.go
quux/ (go code in package main)
y.go
bin/
quux (installed command)
pkg/
linux_amd64/
foo/
bar.a (installed package object)
Go searches each directory listed in GOPATH to find source code, but new packages are always downloaded into the first directory in the list.
See https://golang.org/doc/code.html for an example.
GOPATH and Modules ¶
When using modules, GOPATH is no longer used for resolving imports. However, it is still used to store downloaded source code (in GOPATH/pkg/mod) and compiled commands (in GOPATH/bin).
Internal Directories ¶
Code in or below a directory named "internal" is importable only by code in the directory tree rooted at the parent of "internal". Here's an extended version of the directory layout above:
/home/user/go/
src/
crash/
bang/ (go code in package bang)
b.go
foo/ (go code in package foo)
f.go
bar/ (go code in package bar)
x.go
internal/
baz/ (go code in package baz)
z.go
quux/ (go code in package main)
y.go
The code in z.go is imported as "foo/internal/baz", but that import statement can only appear in source files in the subtree rooted at foo. The source files foo/f.go, foo/bar/x.go, and foo/quux/y.go can all import "foo/internal/baz", but the source file crash/bang/b.go cannot.
See https://golang.org/s/go14internal for details.
Vendor Directories ¶
Go 1.6 includes support for using local copies of external dependencies to satisfy imports of those dependencies, often referred to as vendoring.
Code below a directory named "vendor" is importable only by code in the directory tree rooted at the parent of "vendor", and only using an import path that omits the prefix up to and including the vendor element.
Here's the example from the previous section, but with the "internal" directory renamed to "vendor" and a new foo/vendor/crash/bang directory added:
/home/user/go/
src/
crash/
bang/ (go code in package bang)
b.go
foo/ (go code in package foo)
f.go
bar/ (go code in package bar)
x.go
vendor/
crash/
bang/ (go code in package bang)
b.go
baz/ (go code in package baz)
z.go
quux/ (go code in package main)
y.go
The same visibility rules apply as for internal, but the code in z.go is imported as "baz", not as "foo/vendor/baz".
Code in vendor directories deeper in the source tree shadows code in higher directories. Within the subtree rooted at foo, an import of "crash/bang" resolves to "foo/vendor/crash/bang", not the top-level "crash/bang".
Code in vendor directories is not subject to import path checking (see 'go help importpath').
When 'go get' checks out or updates a git repository, it now also updates submodules.
Vendor directories do not affect the placement of new repositories being checked out for the first time by 'go get': those are always placed in the main GOPATH, never in a vendor subtree.
See https://golang.org/s/go15vendor for details.
Module proxy protocol ¶
The go command by default downloads modules from version control systems directly, just as 'go get' always has. The GOPROXY environment variable allows further control over the download source. If GOPROXY is unset, is the empty string, or is the string "direct", downloads use the default direct connection to version control systems. Setting GOPROXY to "off" disallows downloading modules from any source. Otherwise, GOPROXY is expected to be the URL of a module proxy, in which case the go command will fetch all modules from that proxy. No matter the source of the modules, downloaded modules must match existing entries in go.sum (see 'go help modules' for discussion of verification).
A Go module proxy is any web server that can respond to GET requests for URLs of a specified form. The requests have no query parameters, so even a site serving from a fixed file system (including a file:/// URL) can be a module proxy.
The GET requests sent to a Go module proxy are:
GET $GOPROXY/<module>/@v/list returns a list of all known versions of the given module, one per line.
GET $GOPROXY/<module>/@v/<version>.info returns JSON-formatted metadata about that version of the given module.
GET $GOPROXY/<module>/@v/<version>.mod returns the go.mod file for that version of the given module.
GET $GOPROXY/<module>/@v/<version>.zip returns the zip archive for that version of the given module.
To avoid problems when serving from case-sensitive file systems, the <module> and <version> elements are case-encoded, replacing every uppercase letter with an exclamation mark followed by the corresponding lower-case letter: github.com/Azure encodes as github.com/!azure.
The JSON-formatted metadata about a given module corresponds to this Go data structure, which may be expanded in the future:
type Info struct {
Version string // version string
Time time.Time // commit time
}
The zip archive for a specific version of a given module is a standard zip file that contains the file tree corresponding to the module's source code and related files. The archive uses slash-separated paths, and every file path in the archive must begin with <module>@<version>/, where the module and version are substituted directly, not case-encoded. The root of the module file tree corresponds to the <module>@<version>/ prefix in the archive.
Even when downloading directly from version control systems, the go command synthesizes explicit info, mod, and zip files and stores them in its local cache, $GOPATH/pkg/mod/cache/download, the same as if it had downloaded them directly from a proxy. The cache layout is the same as the proxy URL space, so serving $GOPATH/pkg/mod/cache/download at (or copying it to) https://example.com/proxy would let other users access those cached module versions with GOPROXY=https://example.com/proxy.
Import path syntax ¶
An import path (see 'go help packages') denotes a package stored in the local file system. In general, an import path denotes either a standard package (such as "unicode/utf8") or a package found in one of the work spaces (For more details see: 'go help gopath').
Relative import paths ¶
An import path beginning with ./ or ../ is called a relative path. The toolchain supports relative import paths as a shortcut in two ways.
First, a relative path can be used as a shorthand on the command line. If you are working in the directory containing the code imported as "unicode" and want to run the tests for "unicode/utf8", you can type "go test ./utf8" instead of needing to specify the full path. Similarly, in the reverse situation, "go test .." will test "unicode" from the "unicode/utf8" directory. Relative patterns are also allowed, like "go test ./..." to test all subdirectories. See 'go help packages' for details on the pattern syntax.
Second, if you are compiling a Go program not in a work space, you can use a relative path in an import statement in that program to refer to nearby code also not in a work space. This makes it easy to experiment with small multipackage programs outside of the usual work spaces, but such programs cannot be installed with "go install" (there is no work space in which to install them), so they are rebuilt from scratch each time they are built. To avoid ambiguity, Go programs cannot use relative import paths within a work space.
Remote import paths ¶
Certain import paths also describe how to obtain the source code for the package using a revision control system.
A few common code hosting sites have special syntax:
Bitbucket (Git, Mercurial) import "bitbucket.org/user/project" import "bitbucket.org/user/project/sub/directory" GitHub (Git) import "github.com/user/project" import "github.com/user/project/sub/directory" Launchpad (Bazaar) import "launchpad.net/project" import "launchpad.net/project/series" import "launchpad.net/project/series/sub/directory" import "launchpad.net/~user/project/branch" import "launchpad.net/~user/project/branch/sub/directory" IBM DevOps Services (Git) import "hub.jazz.net/git/user/project" import "hub.jazz.net/git/user/project/sub/directory"
For code hosted on other servers, import paths may either be qualified with the version control type, or the go tool can dynamically fetch the import path over https/http and discover where the code resides from a <meta> tag in the HTML.
To declare the code location, an import path of the form
repository.vcs/path
specifies the given repository, with or without the .vcs suffix, using the named version control system, and then the path inside that repository. The supported version control systems are:
Bazaar .bzr Fossil .fossil Git .git Mercurial .hg Subversion .svn
For example,
import "example.org/user/foo.hg"
denotes the root directory of the Mercurial repository at example.org/user/foo or foo.hg, and
import "example.org/repo.git/foo/bar"
denotes the foo/bar directory of the Git repository at example.org/repo or repo.git.
When a version control system supports multiple protocols, each is tried in turn when downloading. For example, a Git download tries https://, then git+ssh://.
By default, downloads are restricted to known secure protocols (e.g. https, ssh). To override this setting for Git downloads, the GIT_ALLOW_PROTOCOL environment variable can be set (For more details see: 'go help environment').
If the import path is not a known code hosting site and also lacks a version control qualifier, the go tool attempts to fetch the import over https/http and looks for a <meta> tag in the document's HTML <head>.
The meta tag has the form:
<meta name="go-import" content="import-prefix vcs repo-root">
The import-prefix is the import path corresponding to the repository root. It must be a prefix or an exact match of the package being fetched with "go get". If it's not an exact match, another http request is made at the prefix to verify the <meta> tags match.
The meta tag should appear as early in the file as possible. In particular, it should appear before any raw JavaScript or CSS, to avoid confusing the go command's restricted parser.
The vcs is one of "bzr", "fossil", "git", "hg", "svn".
The repo-root is the root of the version control system containing a scheme and not containing a .vcs qualifier.
For example,
import "example.org/pkg/foo"
will result in the following requests:
https://example.org/pkg/foo?go-get=1 (preferred) http://example.org/pkg/foo?go-get=1 (fallback, only with -insecure)
If that page contains the meta tag
<meta name="go-import" content="example.org git https://code.org/r/p/exproj">
the go tool will verify that https://example.org/?go-get=1 contains the same meta tag and then git clone https://code.org/r/p/exproj into GOPATH/src/example.org.
When using GOPATH, downloaded packages are written to the first directory listed in the GOPATH environment variable. (See 'go help gopath-get' and 'go help gopath'.)
When using modules, downloaded packages are stored in the module cache. (See 'go help modules-get' and 'go help goproxy'.)
When using modules, an additional variant of the go-import meta tag is recognized and is preferred over those listing version control systems. That variant uses "mod" as the vcs in the content value, as in:
<meta name="go-import" content="example.org mod https://code.org/moduleproxy">
This tag means to fetch modules with paths beginning with example.org from the module proxy available at the URL https://code.org/moduleproxy. See 'go help goproxy' for details about the proxy protocol.
Import path checking ¶
When the custom import path feature described above redirects to a known code hosting site, each of the resulting packages has two possible import paths, using the custom domain or the known hosting site.
A package statement is said to have an "import comment" if it is immediately followed (before the next newline) by a comment of one of these two forms:
package math // import "path" package math /* import "path" */
The go command will refuse to install a package with an import comment unless it is being referred to by that import path. In this way, import comments let package authors make sure the custom import path is used and not a direct path to the underlying code hosting site.
Import path checking is disabled for code found within vendor trees. This makes it possible to copy code into alternate locations in vendor trees without needing to update import comments.
Import path checking is also disabled when using modules. Import path comments are obsoleted by the go.mod file's module statement.
See https://golang.org/s/go14customimport for details.
Modules, module versions, and more ¶
A module is a collection of related Go packages. Modules are the unit of source code interchange and versioning. The go command has direct support for working with modules, including recording and resolving dependencies on other modules. Modules replace the old GOPATH-based approach to specifying which source files are used in a given build.
Preliminary module support ¶
Go 1.11 includes preliminary support for Go modules, including a new module-aware 'go get' command. We intend to keep revising this support, while preserving compatibility, until it can be declared official (no longer preliminary), and then at a later point we may remove support for work in GOPATH and the old 'go get' command.
The quickest way to take advantage of the new Go 1.11 module support is to check out your repository into a directory outside GOPATH/src, create a go.mod file (described in the next section) there, and run go commands from within that file tree.
For more fine-grained control, the module support in Go 1.11 respects a temporary environment variable, GO111MODULE, which can be set to one of three string values: off, on, or auto (the default). If GO111MODULE=off, then the go command never uses the new module support. Instead it looks in vendor directories and GOPATH to find dependencies; we now refer to this as "GOPATH mode." If GO111MODULE=on, then the go command requires the use of modules, never consulting GOPATH. We refer to this as the command being module-aware or running in "module-aware mode". If GO111MODULE=auto or is unset, then the go command enables or disables module support based on the current directory. Module support is enabled only when the current directory is outside GOPATH/src and itself contains a go.mod file or is below a directory containing a go.mod file.
In module-aware mode, GOPATH no longer defines the meaning of imports during a build, but it still stores downloaded dependencies (in GOPATH/pkg/mod) and installed commands (in GOPATH/bin, unless GOBIN is set).
Defining a module ¶
A module is defined by a tree of Go source files with a go.mod file in the tree's root directory. The directory containing the go.mod file is called the module root. Typically the module root will also correspond to a source code repository root (but in general it need not). The module is the set of all Go packages in the module root and its subdirectories, but excluding subtrees with their own go.mod files.
The "module path" is the import path prefix corresponding to the module root. The go.mod file defines the module path and lists the specific versions of other modules that should be used when resolving imports during a build, by giving their module paths and versions.
For example, this go.mod declares that the directory containing it is the root of the module with path example.com/m, and it also declares that the module depends on specific versions of golang.org/x/text and gopkg.in/yaml.v2:
module example.com/m require ( golang.org/x/text v0.3.0 gopkg.in/yaml.v2 v2.1.0 )
The go.mod file can also specify replacements and excluded versions that only apply when building the module directly; they are ignored when the module is incorporated into a larger build. For more about the go.mod file, see 'go help go.mod'.
To start a new module, simply create a go.mod file in the root of the module's directory tree, containing only a module statement. The 'go mod init' command can be used to do this:
go mod init example.com/m
In a project already using an existing dependency management tool like godep, glide, or dep, 'go mod init' will also add require statements matching the existing configuration.
Once the go.mod file exists, no additional steps are required: go commands like 'go build', 'go test', or even 'go list' will automatically add new dependencies as needed to satisfy imports.
The main module and the build list ¶
The "main module" is the module containing the directory where the go command is run. The go command finds the module root by looking for a go.mod in the current directory, or else the current directory's parent directory, or else the parent's parent directory, and so on.
The main module's go.mod file defines the precise set of packages available for use by the go command, through require, replace, and exclude statements. Dependency modules, found by following require statements, also contribute to the definition of that set of packages, but only through their go.mod files' require statements: any replace and exclude statements in dependency modules are ignored. The replace and exclude statements therefore allow the main module complete control over its own build, without also being subject to complete control by dependencies.
The set of modules providing packages to builds is called the "build list". The build list initially contains only the main module. Then the go command adds to the list the exact module versions required by modules already on the list, recursively, until there is nothing left to add to the list. If multiple versions of a particular module are added to the list, then at the end only the latest version (according to semantic version ordering) is kept for use in the build.
The 'go list' command provides information about the main module and the build list. For example:
go list -m # print path of main module
go list -m -f={{.Dir}} # print root directory of main module
go list -m all # print build list
Maintaining module requirements ¶
The go.mod file is meant to be readable and editable by both programmers and tools. The go command itself automatically updates the go.mod file to maintain a standard formatting and the accuracy of require statements.
Any go command that finds an unfamiliar import will look up the module containing that import and add the latest version of that module to go.mod automatically. In most cases, therefore, it suffices to add an import to source code and run 'go build', 'go test', or even 'go list': as part of analyzing the package, the go command will discover and resolve the import and update the go.mod file.
Any go command can determine that a module requirement is missing and must be added, even when considering only a single package from the module. On the other hand, determining that a module requirement is no longer necessary and can be deleted requires a full view of all packages in the module, across all possible build configurations (architectures, operating systems, build tags, and so on). The 'go mod tidy' command builds that view and then adds any missing module requirements and removes unnecessary ones.
As part of maintaining the require statements in go.mod, the go command tracks which ones provide packages imported directly by the current module and which ones provide packages only used indirectly by other module dependencies. Requirements needed only for indirect uses are marked with a "// indirect" comment in the go.mod file. Indirect requirements are automatically removed from the go.mod file once they are implied by other direct requirements. Indirect requirements only arise when using modules that fail to state some of their own dependencies or when explicitly upgrading a module's dependencies ahead of its own stated requirements.
Because of this automatic maintenance, the information in go.mod is an up-to-date, readable description of the build.
The 'go get' command updates go.mod to change the module versions used in a build. An upgrade of one module may imply upgrading others, and similarly a downgrade of one module may imply downgrading others. The 'go get' command makes these implied changes as well. If go.mod is edited directly, commands like 'go build' or 'go list' will assume that an upgrade is intended and automatically make any implied upgrades and update go.mod to reflect them.
The 'go mod' command provides other functionality for use in maintaining and understanding modules and go.mod files. See 'go help mod'.
The -mod build flag provides additional control over updating and use of go.mod.
If invoked with -mod=readonly, the go command is disallowed from the implicit automatic updating of go.mod described above. Instead, it fails when any changes to go.mod are needed. This setting is most useful to check that go.mod does not need updates, such as in a continuous integration and testing system. The "go get" command remains permitted to update go.mod even with -mod=readonly, and the "go mod" commands do not take the -mod flag (or any other build flags).
If invoked with -mod=vendor, the go command assumes that the vendor directory holds the correct copies of dependencies and ignores the dependency descriptions in go.mod.
Pseudo-versions ¶
The go.mod file and the go command more generally use semantic versions as the standard form for describing module versions, so that versions can be compared to determine which should be considered earlier or later than another. A module version like v1.2.3 is introduced by tagging a revision in the underlying source repository. Untagged revisions can be referred to using a "pseudo-version" like v0.0.0-yyyymmddhhmmss-abcdefabcdef, where the time is the commit time in UTC and the final suffix is the prefix of the commit hash. The time portion ensures that two pseudo-versions can be compared to determine which happened later, the commit hash identifes the underlying commit, and the prefix (v0.0.0- in this example) is derived from the most recent tagged version in the commit graph before this commit.
There are three pseudo-version forms:
vX.0.0-yyyymmddhhmmss-abcdefabcdef is used when there is no earlier versioned commit with an appropriate major version before the target commit. (This was originally the only form, so some older go.mod files use this form even for commits that do follow tags.)
vX.Y.Z-pre.0.yyyymmddhhmmss-abcdefabcdef is used when the most recent versioned commit before the target commit is vX.Y.Z-pre.
vX.Y.(Z+1)-0.yyyymmddhhmmss-abcdefabcdef is used when the most recent versioned commit before the target commit is vX.Y.Z.
Pseudo-versions never need to be typed by hand: the go command will accept the plain commit hash and translate it into a pseudo-version (or a tagged version if available) automatically. This conversion is an example of a module query.
Module queries ¶
The go command accepts a "module query" in place of a module version both on the command line and in the main module's go.mod file. (After evaluating a query found in the main module's go.mod file, the go command updates the file to replace the query with its result.)
A fully-specified semantic version, such as "v1.2.3", evaluates to that specific version.
A semantic version prefix, such as "v1" or "v1.2", evaluates to the latest available tagged version with that prefix.
A semantic version comparison, such as "<v1.2.3" or ">=v1.5.6", evaluates to the available tagged version nearest to the comparison target (the latest version for < and <=, the earliest version for > and >=).
The string "latest" matches the latest available tagged version, or else the underlying source repository's latest untagged revision.
A revision identifier for the underlying source repository, such as a commit hash prefix, revision tag, or branch name, selects that specific code revision. If the revision is also tagged with a semantic version, the query evaluates to that semantic version. Otherwise the query evaluates to a pseudo-version for the commit.
All queries prefer release versions to pre-release versions. For example, "<v1.2.3" will prefer to return "v1.2.2" instead of "v1.2.3-pre1", even though "v1.2.3-pre1" is nearer to the comparison target.
Module versions disallowed by exclude statements in the main module's go.mod are considered unavailable and cannot be returned by queries.
For example, these commands are all valid:
go get github.com/gorilla/mux@latest # same (@latest is default for 'go get') go get github.com/gorilla/mux@v1.6.2 # records v1.6.2 go get github.com/gorilla/mux@e3702bed2 # records v1.6.2 go get github.com/gorilla/mux@c856192 # records v0.0.0-20180517173623-c85619274f5d go get github.com/gorilla/mux@master # records current meaning of master
Module compatibility and semantic versioning ¶
The go command requires that modules use semantic versions and expects that the versions accurately describe compatibility: it assumes that v1.5.4 is a backwards-compatible replacement for v1.5.3, v1.4.0, and even v1.0.0. More generally the go command expects that packages follow the "import compatibility rule", which says:
"If an old package and a new package have the same import path, the new package must be backwards compatible with the old package."
Because the go command assumes the import compatibility rule, a module definition can only set the minimum required version of one of its dependencies: it cannot set a maximum or exclude selected versions. Still, the import compatibility rule is not a guarantee: it may be that v1.5.4 is buggy and not a backwards-compatible replacement for v1.5.3. Because of this, the go command never updates from an older version to a newer version of a module unasked.
In semantic versioning, changing the major version number indicates a lack of backwards compatibility with earlier versions. To preserve import compatibility, the go command requires that modules with major version v2 or later use a module path with that major version as the final element. For example, version v2.0.0 of example.com/m must instead use module path example.com/m/v2, and packages in that module would use that path as their import path prefix, as in example.com/m/v2/sub/pkg. Including the major version number in the module path and import paths in this way is called "semantic import versioning". Pseudo-versions for modules with major version v2 and later begin with that major version instead of v0, as in v2.0.0-20180326061214-4fc5987536ef.
As a special case, module paths beginning with gopkg.in/ continue to use the conventions established on that system: the major version is always present, and it is preceded by a dot instead of a slash: gopkg.in/yaml.v1 and gopkg.in/yaml.v2, not gopkg.in/yaml and gopkg.in/yaml/v2.
The go command treats modules with different module paths as unrelated: it makes no connection between example.com/m and example.com/m/v2. Modules with different major versions can be used together in a build and are kept separate by the fact that their packages use different import paths.
In semantic versioning, major version v0 is for initial development, indicating no expectations of stability or backwards compatibility. Major version v0 does not appear in the module path, because those versions are preparation for v1.0.0, and v1 does not appear in the module path either.
Code written before the semantic import versioning convention was introduced may use major versions v2 and later to describe the same set of unversioned import paths as used in v0 and v1. To accommodate such code, if a source code repository has a v2.0.0 or later tag for a file tree with no go.mod, the version is considered to be part of the v1 module's available versions and is given an +incompatible suffix when converted to a module version, as in v2.0.0+incompatible. The +incompatible tag is also applied to pseudo-versions derived from such versions, as in v2.0.1-0.yyyymmddhhmmss-abcdefabcdef+incompatible.
In general, having a dependency in the build list (as reported by 'go list -m all') on a v0 version, pre-release version, pseudo-version, or +incompatible version is an indication that problems are more likely when upgrading that dependency, since there is no expectation of compatibility for those.
See https://research.swtch.com/vgo-import for more information about semantic import versioning, and see https://semver.org/ for more about semantic versioning.
Module code layout ¶
For now, see https://research.swtch.com/vgo-module for information about how source code in version control systems is mapped to module file trees.
Module downloading and verification ¶
The go command maintains, in the main module's root directory alongside go.mod, a file named go.sum containing the expected cryptographic checksums of the content of specific module versions. Each time a dependency is used, its checksum is added to go.sum if missing or else required to match the existing entry in go.sum.
The go command maintains a cache of downloaded packages and computes and records the cryptographic checksum of each package at download time. In normal operation, the go command checks these pre-computed checksums against the main module's go.sum file, instead of recomputing them on each command invocation. The 'go mod verify' command checks that the cached copies of module downloads still match both their recorded checksums and the entries in go.sum.
The go command can fetch modules from a proxy instead of connecting to source control systems directly, according to the setting of the GOPROXY environment variable.
See 'go help goproxy' for details about the proxy and also the format of the cached downloaded packages.
Modules and vendoring ¶
When using modules, the go command completely ignores vendor directories.
By default, the go command satisfies dependencies by downloading modules from their sources and using those downloaded copies (after verification, as described in the previous section). To allow interoperation with older versions of Go, or to ensure that all files used for a build are stored together in a single file tree, 'go mod vendor' creates a directory named vendor in the root directory of the main module and stores there all the packages from dependency modules that are needed to support builds and tests of packages in the main module.
To build using the main module's top-level vendor directory to satisfy dependencies (disabling use of the usual network sources and local caches), use 'go build -mod=vendor'. Note that only the main module's top-level vendor directory is used; vendor directories in other locations are still ignored.
Module-aware go get ¶
The 'go get' command changes behavior depending on whether the go command is running in module-aware mode or legacy GOPATH mode. This help text, accessible as 'go help module-get' even in legacy GOPATH mode, describes 'go get' as it operates in module-aware mode.
Usage: go get [-d] [-m] [-u] [-v] [-insecure] [build flags] [packages]
Get resolves and adds dependencies to the current development module and then builds and installs them.
The first step is to resolve which dependencies to add.
For each named package or package pattern, get must decide which version of the corresponding module to use. By default, get chooses the latest tagged release version, such as v0.4.5 or v1.2.3. If there are no tagged release versions, get chooses the latest tagged prerelease version, such as v0.0.1-pre1. If there are no tagged versions at all, get chooses the latest known commit.
This default version selection can be overridden by adding an @version suffix to the package argument, as in 'go get golang.org/x/text@v0.3.0'. For modules stored in source control repositories, the version suffix can also be a commit hash, branch identifier, or other syntax known to the source control system, as in 'go get golang.org/x/text@master'. The version suffix @latest explicitly requests the default behavior described above.
If a module under consideration is already a dependency of the current development module, then get will update the required version. Specifying a version earlier than the current required version is valid and downgrades the dependency. The version suffix @none indicates that the dependency should be removed entirely.
Although get defaults to using the latest version of the module containing a named package, it does not use the latest version of that module's dependencies. Instead it prefers to use the specific dependency versions requested by that module. For example, if the latest A requires module B v1.2.3, while B v1.2.4 and v1.3.1 are also available, then 'go get A' will use the latest A but then use B v1.2.3, as requested by A. (If there are competing requirements for a particular module, then 'go get' resolves those requirements by taking the maximum requested version.)
The -u flag instructs get to update dependencies to use newer minor or patch releases when available. Continuing the previous example, 'go get -u A' will use the latest A with B v1.3.1 (not B v1.2.3).
The -u=patch flag (not -u patch) instructs get to update dependencies to use newer patch releases when available. Continuing the previous example, 'go get -u=patch A' will use the latest A with B v1.2.4 (not B v1.2.3).
In general, adding a new dependency may require upgrading existing dependencies to keep a working build, and 'go get' does this automatically. Similarly, downgrading one dependency may require downgrading other dependenceis, and 'go get' does this automatically as well.
The -m flag instructs get to stop here, after resolving, upgrading, and downgrading modules and updating go.mod. When using -m, each specified package path must be a module path as well, not the import path of a package below the module root.
The -insecure flag permits fetching from repositories and resolving custom domains using insecure schemes such as HTTP. Use with caution.
The second step is to download (if needed), build, and install the named packages.
If an argument names a module but not a package (because there is no Go source code in the module's root directory), then the install step is skipped for that argument, instead of causing a build failure. For example 'go get golang.org/x/perf' succeeds even though there is no code corresponding to that import path.
Note that package patterns are allowed and are expanded after resolving the module versions. For example, 'go get golang.org/x/perf/cmd/...' adds the latest golang.org/x/perf and then installs the commands in that latest version.
The -d flag instructs get to download the source code needed to build the named packages, including downloading necessary dependencies, but not to build and install them.
With no package arguments, 'go get' applies to the main module, and to the Go package in the current directory, if any. In particular, 'go get -u' and 'go get -u=patch' update all the dependencies of the main module. With no package arguments and also without -u, 'go get' is not much more than 'go install', and 'go get -d' not much more than 'go list'.
For more about modules, see 'go help modules'.
For more about specifying packages, see 'go help packages'.
This text describes the behavior of get using modules to manage source code and dependencies. If instead the go command is running in GOPATH mode, the details of get's flags and effects change, as does 'go help get'. See 'go help modules' and 'go help gopath-get'.
See also: go build, go install, go clean, go mod.
Package lists and patterns ¶
Many commands apply to a set of packages:
go action [packages]
Usually, [packages] is a list of import paths.
An import path that is a rooted path or that begins with a . or .. element is interpreted as a file system path and denotes the package in that directory.
Otherwise, the import path P denotes the package found in the directory DIR/src/P for some DIR listed in the GOPATH environment variable (For more details see: 'go help gopath').
If no import paths are given, the action applies to the package in the current directory.
There are four reserved names for paths that should not be used for packages to be built with the go tool:
- "main" denotes the top-level package in a stand-alone executable.
- "all" expands to all packages found in all the GOPATH trees. For example, 'go list all' lists all the packages on the local system. When using modules, "all" expands to all packages in the main module and their dependencies, including dependencies needed by tests of any of those.
- "std" is like all but expands to just the packages in the standard Go library.
- "cmd" expands to the Go repository's commands and their internal libraries.
Import paths beginning with "cmd/" only match source code in the Go repository.
An import path is a pattern if it includes one or more "..." wildcards, each of which can match any string, including the empty string and strings containing slashes. Such a pattern expands to all package directories found in the GOPATH trees with names matching the patterns.
To make common patterns more convenient, there are two special cases. First, /... at the end of the pattern can match an empty string, so that net/... matches both net and packages in its subdirectories, like net/http. Second, any slash-separated pattern element containing a wildcard never participates in a match of the "vendor" element in the path of a vendored package, so that ./... does not match packages in subdirectories of ./vendor or ./mycode/vendor, but ./vendor/... and ./mycode/vendor/... do. Note, however, that a directory named vendor that itself contains code is not a vendored package: cmd/vendor would be a command named vendor, and the pattern cmd/... matches it. See golang.org/s/go15vendor for more about vendoring.
An import path can also name a package to be downloaded from a remote repository. Run 'go help importpath' for details.
Every package in a program must have a unique import path. By convention, this is arranged by starting each path with a unique prefix that belongs to you. For example, paths used internally at Google all begin with 'google', and paths denoting remote repositories begin with the path to the code, such as 'github.com/user/repo'.
Packages in a program need not have unique package names, but there are two reserved package names with special meaning. The name main indicates a command, not a library. Commands are built into binaries and cannot be imported. The name documentation indicates documentation for a non-Go program in the directory. Files in package documentation are ignored by the go command.
As a special case, if the package list is a list of .go files from a single directory, the command is applied to a single synthesized package made up of exactly those files, ignoring any build constraints in those files and ignoring any other files in the directory.
Directory and file names that begin with "." or "_" are ignored by the go tool, as are directories named "testdata".
Testing flags ¶
The 'go test' command takes both flags that apply to 'go test' itself and flags that apply to the resulting test binary.
Several of the flags control profiling and write an execution profile suitable for "go tool pprof"; run "go tool pprof -h" for more information. The --alloc_space, --alloc_objects, and --show_bytes options of pprof control how the information is presented.
The following flags are recognized by the 'go test' command and control the execution of any test:
-bench regexp
Run only those benchmarks matching a regular expression.
By default, no benchmarks are run.
To run all benchmarks, use '-bench .' or '-bench=.'.
The regular expression is split by unbracketed slash (/)
characters into a sequence of regular expressions, and each
part of a benchmark's identifier must match the corresponding
element in the sequence, if any. Possible parents of matches
are run with b.N=1 to identify sub-benchmarks. For example,
given -bench=X/Y, top-level benchmarks matching X are run
with b.N=1 to find any sub-benchmarks matching Y, which are
then run in full.
-benchtime t
Run enough iterations of each benchmark to take t, specified
as a time.Duration (for example, -benchtime 1h30s).
The default is 1 second (1s).
The special syntax Nx means to run the benchmark N times
(for example, -benchtime 100x).
-count n
Run each test and benchmark n times (default 1).
If -cpu is set, run n times for each GOMAXPROCS value.
Examples are always run once.
-cover
Enable coverage analysis.
Note that because coverage works by annotating the source
code before compilation, compilation and test failures with
coverage enabled may report line numbers that don't correspond
to the original sources.
-covermode set,count,atomic
Set the mode for coverage analysis for the package[s]
being tested. The default is "set" unless -race is enabled,
in which case it is "atomic".
The values:
set: bool: does this statement run?
count: int: how many times does this statement run?
atomic: int: count, but correct in multithreaded tests;
significantly more expensive.
Sets -cover.
-coverpkg pattern1,pattern2,pattern3
Apply coverage analysis in each test to packages matching the patterns.
The default is for each test to analyze only the package being tested.
See 'go help packages' for a description of package patterns.
Sets -cover.
-cpu 1,2,4
Specify a list of GOMAXPROCS values for which the tests or
benchmarks should be executed. The default is the current value
of GOMAXPROCS.
-failfast
Do not start new tests after the first test failure.
-list regexp
List tests, benchmarks, or examples matching the regular expression.
No tests, benchmarks or examples will be run. This will only
list top-level tests. No subtest or subbenchmarks will be shown.
-parallel n
Allow parallel execution of test functions that call t.Parallel.
The value of this flag is the maximum number of tests to run
simultaneously; by default, it is set to the value of GOMAXPROCS.
Note that -parallel only applies within a single test binary.
The 'go test' command may run tests for different packages
in parallel as well, according to the setting of the -p flag
(see 'go help build').
-run regexp
Run only those tests and examples matching the regular expression.
For tests, the regular expression is split by unbracketed slash (/)
characters into a sequence of regular expressions, and each part
of a test's identifier must match the corresponding element in
the sequence, if any. Note that possible parents of matches are
run too, so that -run=X/Y matches and runs and reports the result
of all tests matching X, even those without sub-tests matching Y,
because it must run them to look for those sub-tests.
-short
Tell long-running tests to shorten their run time.
It is off by default but set during all.bash so that installing
the Go tree can run a sanity check but not spend time running
exhaustive tests.
-timeout d
If a test binary runs longer than duration d, panic.
If d is 0, the timeout is disabled.
The default is 10 minutes (10m).
-v
Verbose output: log all tests as they are run. Also print all
text from Log and Logf calls even if the test succeeds.
-vet list
Configure the invocation of "go vet" during "go test"
to use the comma-separated list of vet checks.
If list is empty, "go test" runs "go vet" with a curated list of
checks believed to be always worth addressing.
If list is "off", "go test" does not run "go vet" at all.
The following flags are also recognized by 'go test' and can be used to profile the tests during execution:
-benchmem
Print memory allocation statistics for benchmarks.
-blockprofile block.out
Write a goroutine blocking profile to the specified file
when all tests are complete.
Writes test binary as -c would.
-blockprofilerate n
Control the detail provided in goroutine blocking profiles by
calling runtime.SetBlockProfileRate with n.
See 'go doc runtime.SetBlockProfileRate'.
The profiler aims to sample, on average, one blocking event every
n nanoseconds the program spends blocked. By default,
if -test.blockprofile is set without this flag, all blocking events
are recorded, equivalent to -test.blockprofilerate=1.
-coverprofile cover.out
Write a coverage profile to the file after all tests have passed.
Sets -cover.
-cpuprofile cpu.out
Write a CPU profile to the specified file before exiting.
Writes test binary as -c would.
-memprofile mem.out
Write an allocation profile to the file after all tests have passed.
Writes test binary as -c would.
-memprofilerate n
Enable more precise (and expensive) memory allocation profiles by
setting runtime.MemProfileRate. See 'go doc runtime.MemProfileRate'.
To profile all memory allocations, use -test.memprofilerate=1.
-mutexprofile mutex.out
Write a mutex contention profile to the specified file
when all tests are complete.
Writes test binary as -c would.
-mutexprofilefraction n
Sample 1 in n stack traces of goroutines holding a
contended mutex.
-outputdir directory
Place output files from profiling in the specified directory,
by default the directory in which "go test" is running.
-trace trace.out
Write an execution trace to the specified file before exiting.
Each of these flags is also recognized with an optional 'test.' prefix, as in -test.v. When invoking the generated test binary (the result of 'go test -c') directly, however, the prefix is mandatory.
The 'go test' command rewrites or removes recognized flags, as appropriate, both before and after the optional package list, before invoking the test binary.
For instance, the command
go test -v -myflag testdata -cpuprofile=prof.out -x
will compile the test binary and then run it as
pkg.test -test.v -myflag testdata -test.cpuprofile=prof.out
(The -x flag is removed because it applies only to the go command's execution, not to the test itself.)
The test flags that generate profiles (other than for coverage) also leave the test binary in pkg.test for use when analyzing the profiles.
When 'go test' runs a test binary, it does so from within the corresponding package's source code directory. Depending on the test, it may be necessary to do the same when invoking a generated test binary directly.
The command-line package list, if present, must appear before any flag not known to the go test command. Continuing the example above, the package list would have to appear before -myflag, but could appear on either side of -v.
When 'go test' runs in package list mode, 'go test' caches successful package test results to avoid unnecessary repeated running of tests. To disable test caching, use any test flag or argument other than the cacheable flags. The idiomatic way to disable test caching explicitly is to use -count=1.
To keep an argument for a test binary from being interpreted as a known flag or a package name, use -args (see 'go help test') which passes the remainder of the command line through to the test binary uninterpreted and unaltered.
For instance, the command
go test -v -args -x -v
will compile the test binary and then run it as
pkg.test -test.v -x -v
Similarly,
go test -args math
will compile the test binary and then run it as
pkg.test math
In the first example, the -x and the second -v are passed through to the test binary unchanged and with no effect on the go command itself. In the second example, the argument math is passed through to the test binary, instead of being interpreted as the package list.
Testing functions ¶
The 'go test' command expects to find test, benchmark, and example functions in the "*_test.go" files corresponding to the package under test.
A test function is one named TestXxx (where Xxx does not start with a lower case letter) and should have the signature,
func TestXxx(t *testing.T) { ... }
A benchmark function is one named BenchmarkXxx and should have the signature,
func BenchmarkXxx(b *testing.B) { ... }
An example function is similar to a test function but, instead of using *testing.T to report success or failure, prints output to os.Stdout. If the last comment in the function starts with "Output:" then the output is compared exactly against the comment (see examples below). If the last comment begins with "Unordered output:" then the output is compared to the comment, however the order of the lines is ignored. An example with no such comment is compiled but not executed. An example with no text after "Output:" is compiled, executed, and expected to produce no output.
Godoc displays the body of ExampleXxx to demonstrate the use of the function, constant, or variable Xxx. An example of a method M with receiver type T or *T is named ExampleT_M. There may be multiple examples for a given function, constant, or variable, distinguished by a trailing _xxx, where xxx is a suffix not beginning with an upper case letter.
Here is an example of an example:
func ExamplePrintln() {
Println("The output of\nthis example.")
// Output: The output of
// this example.
}
Here is another example where the ordering of the output is ignored:
func ExamplePerm() {
for _, value := range Perm(4) {
fmt.Println(value)
}
// Unordered output: 4
// 2
// 1
// 3
// 0
}
The entire test file is presented as the example when it contains a single example function, at least one other function, type, variable, or constant declaration, and no test or benchmark functions.
See the documentation of the testing package for more information.
Source Files
Directories
¶
| Path | Synopsis |
|---|---|
|
internal
|
|
|
base
Package base defines shared basic pieces of the go command, in particular logging and the Command structure.
|
Package base defines shared basic pieces of the go command, in particular logging and the Command structure. |
|
bug
Package bug implements the “go bug” command.
|
Package bug implements the “go bug” command. |
|
cache
Package cache implements a build artifact cache.
|
Package cache implements a build artifact cache. |
|
cfg
Package cfg holds configuration shared by multiple parts of the go command.
|
Package cfg holds configuration shared by multiple parts of the go command. |
|
clean
Package clean implements the “go clean” command.
|
Package clean implements the “go clean” command. |
|
cmdflag
Package cmdflag handles flag processing common to several go tools.
|
Package cmdflag handles flag processing common to several go tools. |
|
dirhash
Package dirhash defines hashes over directory trees.
|
Package dirhash defines hashes over directory trees. |
|
doc
Package doc implements the “go doc” command.
|
Package doc implements the “go doc” command. |
|
envcmd
Package envcmd implements the “go env” command.
|
Package envcmd implements the “go env” command. |
|
fix
Package fix implements the “go fix” command.
|
Package fix implements the “go fix” command. |
|
fmtcmd
Package fmtcmd implements the “go fmt” command.
|
Package fmtcmd implements the “go fmt” command. |
|
generate
Package generate implements the “go generate” command.
|
Package generate implements the “go generate” command. |
|
get
Package get implements the “go get” command.
|
Package get implements the “go get” command. |
|
help
Package help implements the “go help” command.
|
Package help implements the “go help” command. |
|
list
Package list implements the “go list” command.
|
Package list implements the “go list” command. |
|
load
Package load loads packages.
|
Package load loads packages. |
|
modcmd
Package modcmd implements the “go mod” command.
|
Package modcmd implements the “go mod” command. |
|
modfetch/codehost
Package codehost defines the interface implemented by a code hosting source, along with support code for use by implementations.
|
Package codehost defines the interface implemented by a code hosting source, along with support code for use by implementations. |
|
modget
Package modget implements the module-aware “go get” command.
|
Package modget implements the module-aware “go get” command. |
|
module
Package module defines the module.Version type along with support code.
|
Package module defines the module.Version type along with support code. |
|
mvs
Package mvs implements Minimal Version Selection.
|
Package mvs implements Minimal Version Selection. |
|
par
Package par implements parallel execution helpers.
|
Package par implements parallel execution helpers. |
|
run
Package run implements the “go run” command.
|
Package run implements the “go run” command. |
|
semver
Package semver implements comparison of semantic version strings.
|
Package semver implements comparison of semantic version strings. |
|
str
Package str provides string manipulation utilities.
|
Package str provides string manipulation utilities. |
|
tool
Package tool implements the “go tool” command.
|
Package tool implements the “go tool” command. |
|
txtar
Package txtar implements a trivial text-based file archive format.
|
Package txtar implements a trivial text-based file archive format. |
|
version
Package version implements the “go version” command.
|
Package version implements the “go version” command. |
|
vet
Package vet implements the “go vet” command.
|
Package vet implements the “go vet” command. |
|
web
Package web defines helper routines for accessing HTTP/HTTPS resources.
|
Package web defines helper routines for accessing HTTP/HTTPS resources. |