The docs say nothing about what build vs install does
My expectation was that it's like make install; i.e. it takes the compiled stuff and puts in its final location (/usr/local/bin/my_new_toy or whatever) but it seems that it puts things in GOROOT/bin
Can I tell go to do a make install - i.e. put things elsewhere? Or do I just write a makefile (please tell me no)?
2 Answers
go build vs go install:
go buildjust compiles the executable file and moves it to the destination.go installdoes a little bit more. It moves the executable file to$GOPATH/binand caches all non-main packages which are imported to$GOPATH/pkg. The cache will be used during the next compilation provided the source did not change yet.
A package tree after go build and go install:
.
├── bin
│ └── hello # by go install
└── src
└── hello
├── hello # by go build
└── hello.go
If you want binary files to go to a specific location, you can use the environment variable GOBIN :
The bin/ directory holds compiled commands. Each command is named for its source directory, but only the final element, not the entire path. That is, the command with source in DIR/src/foo/quux is installed into DIR/bin/quux, not DIR/bin/foo/quux. The foo/ is stripped so that you can add DIR/bin to your PATH to get at the installed commands. If the GOBIN environment variable is set, commands are installed to the directory it names instead of DIR/bin.
Source :
GOBIN=/usr/local/bin/ go install
If you want per-project bin/ directory then you can simply append your project path to GOPATH, however you must have your code under $project-path/src/ and go install will put all the binaries in $project-path/bin.
export GOPATH=/dir1:/dir2:/dir3
If GOBIN is not set, binaries from /dir1/src end up in /dir1/bin, binaries from /dir2/src end up in /dir2/bin, and so on (and binaries from $GOROOT/src end up in $GOROOT/bin).
Source :
And you can also just use (thanks JimB):
go build -o /path/binary-name
