Installing packages in a local directory

Question

What is the best practice to install packages (those with go get...) in a local directory?

Example: I'd like to try out the Revel web framework, but I don't want to clutter my go installation at /usr/local/go.

Normally I'd say sudo go get github.com/robfig/revel as written on the home page, but that would install it beneath /usr/local/go/src/pkg/....

Is there an easy way to say (for example) go get --local ... and have the package in the current (sub) directory?

Hard to chose which answer to accept. For the moment I've only played with `GOPATH`, so @keks's answer is the one I chose, but this might change in the future :) — topskip, Sep 20 '12 at 15:41

score 25 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 20 '12 at 14:15

25

To expand on keks answer, you can update your .bashrc to look like this

export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
export GOPATH=~/workspace/me/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin

Now all packages installed with go get are separate from the go distribution.

answered Sep 20 '12 at 14:15

dskinner

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score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '12 at 13:55

14

You can export the env variable GOPATH. For me it is ~/local/lib/go. This folder has the subfolders bin, pkg and src, so it's just like /usr/local/go. The go-tool will then automatically download , build and install packages into this directory.

answered Sep 20 '12 at 13:55

keks

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score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 12 '13 at 14:17

You might want to consider using Go Version Manager (gvm).

Apart from switching between Go versions easily, it also lets you switch between pkgsets ("workspaces").

First you create a set

gvm pkgset create myproject

and then you use it

gvm pkgset use myproject

Works like a charm.

Installing packages in a local directory

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