Command line application install using GoLang

Question

I'm not sure how this would work but I'm basically trying to write a command line app that I can run commands and subcommands from. I'm using this popular third party library for parsing command line parameters:

https://github.com/urfave/cli

My problem is I have a project folder where my .go files will live:

MyProject

so even if in the code in my main.go file, using their example, I have:

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "os"

  "github.com/urfave/cli"
)

func main() {
  app := cli.NewApp()
  app.Name = "greet"
  app.Usage = "fight the loneliness!"
  app.Action = func(c *cli.Context) error {
    fmt.Println("Hello friend!")
    return nil
  }

  app.Run(os.Args)
}

when I run go install,

in my $GOPATH/bin directory, I actually get MyProject built. And then when I run MyProject from the terminal, I get

USAGE:
myproject [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

But in reality, I don't need the myproject command first. Is there a way this is normally done with command line apps or third party packages to create command line apps so that I can run greet from the command line instead of myproject as the first command?

Pavel Nikolov · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-08 06:39:11Z

Check the documentation for the go build command

go build [-o output] [-i] [build flags] [packages]

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.

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.

Try building it like this go build -o greet and do not forget to add the resulting executable to your $PATH if you want it to be accessible from everywhere.

Alternatively, you can just 1) create an alias; or 2) symlink to the actual executable:

alias greet='myproject'
ln -s $GOPATH/bin/myproject greet (the link will be created in the current dir)

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Command line application install using GoLang

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related