Go, Golang : Program, Package Structure for Command Line Interface

Question

This is newbie question... Let's say I have a Go code in a directory(repository initiated here as root) called "myprogram". And I write some packages divided in several sub-directories.

Then I have

repository, root directory

myprogram
----------- package1
----------- package2
----------- package3

Then in the myprogram directory, I will write the code with main package for main program and the main program will call all the packages that are defined in the sub-directories, like the following:

main.go

import "github.com/username/package1"
import "github.com/username/package2"
import "github.com/username/package3"

func main() {
    package1.Function1()
    ....
}

Then I can just run this code with

$ go run main.go

I have no problem so far. But what if this program has some features with flags?

$ go run main.go  flag1 flag2

This works, but I want to run something like

$ myprogram
$ flag1
....
$ flag2

Since all the programs and source code will be contained under the directory myprogram which is also the name of the project, repository

myprogram
----------- package1
----------- package2
----------- package3

We run Vim with the command, something like this...

$ vim

To summarize, how do I make my program run by command, not by go run main ?

Is there any open source repository that I can refer to? Or please let me know the package or documentation to read. I tried

go install

But can't make it work like I wanted.

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Use go build. This will create an executable of the package in the current directory. You can also run go build <packagename>, which creates a binary in $GOPATH/bin.

Answer 2

Take a look at this one

• it is an open source repository that people can refer to
• it illustrates how to deal with the cases that the main program can have some sub features that need different flags
• and for sure it shows how to make programs run by command, not by go run main
• and most importantly, make the whole process as simple as possible by auto-generate all things that can be auto-generated