Organizing a multiple-file Go project [closed]

Note: this question is related to this one, but two years is a very long time in Go history.

What is the standard way to organize a Go project during development ?

My project is a single package mypack, so I guess I put all the .go files in a mypack directory.

But then, I would like to test it during development so I need at least a file declaring the main package, so that I can do go run trypack.go

How should I organize this ? Do I need to do go install mypack each time I want to try it ?

Solution 1:

I would recommend reviewing this page on How to Write Go Code

It documents both how to structure your project in a go build friendly way, and also how to write tests. Tests do not need to be a cmd using the main package. They can simply be TestX named functions as part of each package, and then go test will discover them.

The structure suggested in that link in your question is a bit outdated, now with the release of Go 1. You no longer would need to place a pkg directory under src. The only 3 spec-related directories are the 3 in the root of your GOPATH: bin, pkg, src . Underneath src, you can simply place your project mypack, and underneath that is all of your .go files including the mypack_test.go

go build will then build into the root level pkg and bin.

So your GOPATH might look like this:

~/projects/
    bin/
    pkg/
    src/
      mypack/
        foo.go
        bar.go
        mypack_test.go

export GOPATH=$HOME/projects

$ go build mypack
$ go test mypack

Update: as of >= Go 1.11, the Module system is now a standard part of the tooling and the GOPATH concept is close to becoming obsolete.

Solution 2:

jdi has the right information concerning the use of GOPATH. I would add that if you intend to have a binary as well you might want to add one additional level to the directories.

~/projects/src/
    myproj/
        mypack/
            lib.go
            lib_test.go
            ...
        myapp/
            main.go

running go build myproj/mypack will build the mypack package along with it's dependencies running go build myproj/myapp will build the myapp binary along with it's dependencies which probably includes the mypack library.

Solution 3:

I have studied a number of Go projects and there is a fair bit of variation. You can kind of tell who is coming from C and who is coming from Java, as the former dump just about everything in the projects root directory in a main package, and the latter tend to put everything in a src directory. Neither is optimal however. Each have consequences because they affect import paths and how others can reuse them.

To get the best results I have worked out the following approach.

myproj/
  main/
    mypack.go
  mypack.go

Where mypack.go is package mypack and main/mypack.go is (obviously) package main.

If you need additional support files you have two choices. Either keep them all in the root directory, or put private support files in a lib subdirectory. E.g.

myproj/
  main/
    mypack.go
  myextras/
    someextra.go
  mypack.go
  mysupport.go

Or

myproj.org/
  lib/
    mysupport.go
    myextras/
      someextra.go
  main/
    mypack.go
  mypage.go

Only put the files in a lib directory if they are not intended to be imported by another project. In other words, if they are private support files. That's the idea behind having lib --to separate public from private interfaces.

Doing things this way will give you a nice import path, myproj.org/mypack to reuse the code in other projects. If you use lib then internal support files will have an import path that is indicative of that, myproj.org/lib/mysupport.

When building the project, use main/mypack, e.g. go build main/mypack. If you have more than one executable you can also separate those under main without having to create separate projects. e.g. main/myfoo/myfoo.go and main/mybar/mybar.go.