Go – Get Started with Hello World using Go Programming

This blog represents steps required to get started with Go programming language on Linux/Ubuntu. The details can be found on this Golang – Getting Started page.

Setup Go & Configure

The following instructions can be used to setup Go which includes installation and configuration:

• Download the appropriate binary release from Go Download Page; In case of Linux, download go1.9.*.tar.gz.
• Go to the download folder and execute the following command:

  tar -C /usr/local -xzf go$VERSION.$OS-$ARCH.tar.gz
  

  For the latest version of Go, the above command would look like following:

  tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.9.linux-amd64.tar.gz
  

  Above command would setup go at the location, /usr/local.

• Configure path appropriately such that Go can be used to run the programs from anywhere on the system. Set following in ~/.bashrc file.

  export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
  export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin
  

  Once done, execute the .bashrc to put the settings in effect in current terminal.

  . ~/.bashrc
  

Create Hello World Program using Go Programming Language

• Create a project folder structure such as following: ~/goapp/src/hello
• Create a file namely hello.go with following code, in the src/hello folder:

  package main
  
  import "fmt"
  
  func main() {
    fmt.Printf("hello, world\n")
  }
  

• Build the Hello.go program

  go build
  

• Run the program

  ./hello
  

Execution of above program should print hello, world