git library for Go

Question

As a pet project, I want to develop a note taking app using git as storage backend. (I suspect this doesn't exist yet, given this guy's blog post: http://jarofgreen.co.uk/2012/08/how-about-a-mobile-note-app-backed-by-git/ )

Now, I'd like to take this as an opportunity to play around with Go a bit. However, I cannot seem to find any (not even the tiniest approach to) git library for Go. Is there actually any?

Obviously my knowledge of Go is non-existant, so writing bindings for libgit doesn't seem a fun way to start... (and I would probably resort to ruby, which I don't know either)

I was sure to have seen a similar question some time ago but I can't find it. Am I wrong ? — Denys Séguret, Nov 23 '12 at 19:16

score 47 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 20 '20 at 09:11

47

I'd say git2go is the git bindings library to use in Go. It is updated regularly and maintained by the people running libgit2.

If you are looking for a git implementation purely written in Go, go-git the most mature and active option.

edited Nov 20 '20 at 09:11

dotmicron

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answered Jul 02 '13 at 15:21

Fernando Á.

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This package is relatively new (compared to question). This is currently the best choice. (Should be marked as correct answer for future reference.) – Tomas Nov 22 '13 at 00:02
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I ended up going with go-git, git2go is a huge hassle to get working properly on a Windows machine. – VivaLaPanda Jan 25 '18 at 22:40
I say https://github.com/go-git/go-git looks good. – Louie Miranda Jul 21 '22 at 06:25

mcuadros · Answer 2 · 2020-08-20T23:47:32.277

Since a few years ago, my team and I, we were coding a pure git implementation in Go, it avoids to have any c/c++ dependency and make it more flexible and easy to extend.

https://github.com/go-git/go-git

go-git aims to reach the completeness of libgit2 or jgit, nowadays covers the majority of the plumbing read operations and some of the main write operations, but lacks the main porcelain operations such as merges.

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 23 '12 at 16:15

14

You can just shell out to git command using os/exec package from Go standard library.

answered Nov 23 '12 at 16:15

Victor Deryagin

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That is [what the official 'go' command does](https://golang.org/src/cmd/go/vcs.go). – David C. Bishop Oct 14 '14 at 09:09
Updated link: https://golang.org/src/cmd/go/internal/get/vcs.go – Tony Apr 05 '20 at 20:45
Updated updated link: https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.17:src/cmd/go/internal/vcs/vcs.go;l=152 – trey-jones Sep 08 '21 at 11:36

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 23 '12 at 16:38

What Victor proposed is indeed the "official" way to "script" Git as envisioned by its developers. Git's commands are divided in the two broad groups specifically for this purpose: the "plumbing" commands are low-level and inteneded mostly to be used by other programs; the "porcelain" command are intended to interact with the user, and call plumbing commands to do their work. Look inside the /usr/lib/git-core directory (might be different on your system) to get the idea of how many plumbing commands Git has.

On the other hand, Go supports linking with shared libraries via its cgo facility. You hence could try wrapping libgit2 with it. AFAIK, libgit2 is not yet fully on par with the Git itself, but it is able to read/write Git repositories, do branching etc — supposedly it will be enough for your task.

Okay, after I wrote all that, I scrolled down the "Bindings" entry on the libgit2's site and found go-git...

Ok, fair enough. I think I'll still resort to some form of bindings (go-git seems quite interesting), that just seems an easier way to deal with the commands output... — vhdirk, Nov 25 '12 at 08:31

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 19 '14 at 02:35

3

A search for "git" on GoDoc turns up some projects. There's a libgit2 wrapper, and at the bottom is an unfinished Git implementation in Go.

edited Aug 19 '14 at 02:35

Mirek Rusin

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answered Nov 23 '12 at 16:42

Thomas Kappler

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Oh, thanks, I didn't even know about GoPkgDoc in the first place – vhdirk Nov 25 '12 at 08:29

Setjmp · Answer 6 · 2021-02-23T01:37:05.560

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The golang-gitoperations module provides an os/exec based interface to the command line tool.

edited Feb 23 '21 at 01:37

answered Feb 11 '21 at 02:59

Setjmp

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 19 '20 at 16:05

use git as storage backend

Then the Go library fluxcd/go-git-providers can come in handy.

go-git-providers is a general-purpose Go client for interacting with Git providers' APIs (e.g. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket).

Example:

package github_test

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"

    "github.com/fluxcd/go-git-providers/github"
    "github.com/fluxcd/go-git-providers/gitprovider"
    gogithub "github.com/google/go-github/v32/github"
)

func ExampleOrgRepositoriesClient_Get() {
    // Create a new client
    ctx := context.Background()
    c, err := github.NewClient()
    checkErr(err)

    // Parse the URL into an OrgRepositoryRef
    ref, err := gitprovider.ParseOrgRepositoryURL("https://github.com/fluxcd/flux")
    checkErr(err)

    // Get public information about the flux repository.
    repo, err := c.OrgRepositories().Get(ctx, *ref)
    checkErr(err)

    // Use .Get() to aquire a high-level gitprovider.OrganizationInfo struct
    repoInfo := repo.Get()
    // Cast the internal object to a *gogithub.Repository to access custom data
    internalRepo := repo.APIObject().(*gogithub.Repository)

    fmt.Printf("Description: %s. Homepage: %s", *repoInfo.Description, internalRepo.GetHomepage())
    // Output: Description: The GitOps Kubernetes operator. Homepage: https://docs.fluxcd.io
}

git library for Go

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