Hello Gophers! There's a fair amount of documentation available[0] about how "go install" works, particularly in contrast to "go build,"[1,2] but not a lot about which one is more idiomatic/preferred. Using the standard toolchain, it seems there's three ways to build your applications:
- go build - go build -i - go install - Are there more that I'm unaware of? Are some preferred in certain circumstances (for example, "go install" for development, "go build" on CI or for building *.rpm and *.deb packages?) Apparently Dave Cheney says to prefer "go install" over "go build"[3], except when cross-compiling [4]. However, many of these posts are older, and Golang moves at such a rapid clip that it's difficult to keep track of what everybody is doing. Larger projects tend to use a bunch of shell scripts, so it can be difficult to tell what they're doing underneath, but I just did a quick survey: Kubernetes[5] and OpenShift[6] use "go install" to build, and a cursory search of those repositories shows a healthy mix of both "go build" and "go install" amongst vendored libraries. Docker appears to use "go build"[7]. That Heartbleed/Ticketbleed guy with the great hair builds with "go test -i" if I'm reading the hellogopher code correctly[8]. Tim Hockin's boilerplate project uses "go install"[9]. Hopefully I didn't just accidentally start a flamewar/bikeshedding session with this question... Seems like an important thing to settle. I'm curious to hear your thoughts! Cheers, Jonathan [0] https://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Compile_and_install_packages_and_dependencies [1] https://github.com/NanXiao/golang-101-hacks/blob/master/posts/go-build-vs-go-install.md [2] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-build-and-install-in-Go [3] https://peter.bourgon.org/go-best-practices-2016/#build-and-deploy [4] https://dave.cheney.net/2015/08/22/cross-compilation-with-go-1-5 [5] https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/3897fc00db947c5f782a8b9c68602339b16deeaa/hack/lib/golang.sh#L478-L481 [6] https://github.com/openshift/origin/blob/6d206d23bdf3654df3537ba034fa5bc7e5ad4697/hack/common.sh#L223-L228 (I think this was copied from k8s) [7] https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/c07234707878412eaaeab252af19adac8cf25d6b/hack/make/.binary#L34-L42 [8] https://github.com/cloudflare/hellogopher/blob/master/Makefile#L33 [9] https://github.com/thockin/go-build-template/blob/43e119bda6199d80ecf6982b05b837e091aaeeba/build/build.sh#L37-L40 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
