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Using Go 1.23 Toolset

Red Hat Developer Tools 1

Installing and using Go 1.23 Toolset

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Abstract

Go Toolset is a Red Hat offering for developers on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system. Use this guide for an overview of Go Toolset, to learn how to invoke and use different versions of Go tools, and to find resources with more in-depth information.

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Chapter 1. Go Toolset
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Go Toolset is a Red Hat offering for developers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It provides the Go programming language tools and libraries. Note that Go is alternatively known as golang.

Go Toolset is available as a module for RHEL 8 and as packages for RHEL 9 and 10.

1.1. Go Toolset components
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The following components are available as a part of Go Toolset:

Expand
NameVersionDescription

golang

1.23

A Go compiler.

delve

1.24

A Go debugger.

1.2. Go Toolset compatibility
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Go Toolset is available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the following architectures:

  • AMD and Intel 64-bit (x86_64)
  • 64-bit ARM (aarch64)
  • IBM Power Systems, Little Endian (ppc64le)
  • 64-bit IBM Z (s390x)

1.3. Installing Go Toolset
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Complete the following steps to install Go Toolset, including all dependent packages.

Prerequisites

  • All available Red Hat Enterprise Linux updates are installed.

Procedure

  • Install Go Toolset:

    • On RHEL 8, enter: 

      # yum module install go-toolset

    • On RHEL 9 and 10, enter: 

      # dnf install go-toolset

1.4. Installing Go documentation
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You can install documentation for the Go programming language on your local system.

Procedure

  • Install the golang-docs package:

    • On RHEL 8, enter: 

      # yum install golang-docs

    • On RHEL 9 and 10, enter: 

      # dnf install golang-docs

Verification

  • Open /usr/lib/golang/doc/go_spec.html in a browser that is installed on the same host.

Chapter 2. The Go compiler
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2.1. Prerequisites
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2.2. Setting up a Go workspace
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Modern Go projects are built using modules. You can start with a single module and then optionally group multiple modules into a workspace to work on them simultaneously.

Procedure

  1. Create a root directory for your projects, for example: 

    $ mkdir ~/go-projects/

  2. Change into the project directory: 

    $ cd ~/go-projects/

  3. Initialize a module:

    1. Create a directory for your module: 

      $ mkdir <module_name>

    2. Change into the module’s directory: 

      $ cd <module_name>

    3. Initialize the module: 

      $ go mod init <module_name>

      This command creates a single-module project.

    If you want to create multiple modules, repeat this step for every module.

  4. If you want to work on multiple modules at the same time, create a multi-module workspace:

    1. Change into the project directory: 

      $ cd ~/go-projects/

    2. Initialize a workspace to include multiple modules: 

      $ go work init <module_name_1> <module_name_n> ...

2.3. Compiling a Go program
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You can compile your Go program using the Go compiler. The Go compiler creates an executable binary file as a result of compiling.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  • Compile the Go sources in the current directory: 

    $ go build .

2.4. Running a Go program
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The Go compiler creates an executable binary file as a result of compiling. Complete the following steps to run your program.

Procedure

  • Use one of the following options to execute your Go program:

    • To run an compiled program, enter: 

      $ ./<file_name>

      Replace <file_name> with the name of your executable file.

    • To compile the sources in the current directory and run the program in a single step, enter: 

      $ go run .

2.5. Installing compiled Go projects
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You can download and install third-party Go projects from online resources to use their executable files and libraries in further Go projects. After installation, the executable files and libraries of the project are copied according to the directories in the Go workspace. Its dependencies are installed as well.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  • Install a Go project: 

    $ go install <go_project>

2.6. Downloading and installing Go projects
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You can download and install third-party Go projects from online resources to use their executable files and libraries in further Go projects. After installation, the executable files and libraries of the project are copied according to the directories in the Go workspace. Its dependencies are installed as well.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. To download and install a Go project, enter: 

    $ go install <third_party_go_project>

  2. Optional: For information on possible values of third-party projects, enter: 

    $ go help importpath

Chapter 3. The gofmt formatting tool
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Instead of a style guide, the Go programming language uses the gofmt code formatting tool. gofmt automatically formats your code according to the Go layout rules.

3.1. Prerequisites
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3.2. Formatting code
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You can use the gofmt formatting tool to format code in a given path. When the path leads to a single file, the changes apply only to the file. When the path leads to a directory, all .go files in the directory are processed.

Procedure

  • To format your code in a given path, enter: 

    $ gofmt -w <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to format.

    Note

    To print the formatted code to standard output instead of writing it to the original file, omit the -w option.

3.3. Previewing changes to code
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You can use the gofmt formatting tool to preview changes done by formatting code in a given path. The output in unified diff format is printed to standard output.

Procedure

  • Show differences in your code in a given path: 

    $ gofmt -d <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to compare.

3.4. Simplifying code
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You can use the gofmt formatting tool to simplify your code.

Procedure

  1. To simplify code in a given path, enter: 

    $ gofmt -s -w <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to simplify.

  2. To apply the changes, enter: 

    $ gofmt -w <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to format.

3.5. Refactoring code
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You can use the gofmt formatting tool to refactor your code by applying arbitrary substitutions.

Procedure

  1. To refactor your code in a given path, enter: 

    $ gofmt -r -w <rewrite_rule> <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to refactor and <rewrite_rule> with the rule you want it to be rewritten by.

  2. To apply the changes, enter: 

    # gofmt -w <code_path>

    Replace <code_path> with the path to the code you want to format.

Chapter 4. The Go race detector
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Go Toolset includes the Go race detector, which is a tool of the Go standard library for finding race conditions. Note that the race detector has a significant runtime resource overhead.

4.1. Prerequisites
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4.2. Using the Go race detector
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Use the Go race detector to check your code for race conditions.

Procedure

  • Use the race detector: 

    # go build -race -o <output_file> <go_main_package>

    Replace <output_file> with the name of your executable file and <go_main_package> with the name of the package you want to test.

Chapter 5. Container images with Go Toolset
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You can build your own Go Toolset containers from either Red Hat Enterprise Linux container images or Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI).

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux container images of Go Toolset contain the following packages:

Expand
ComponentVersionPackage

Go

1.23

go-toolset-1.23

Pull the container image from the Red Hat registry before running your container and performing actions.

Procedure

  • Pull the required image:

    • For an image based on RHEL 8, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.redhat.io/rhel8/go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 9, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.redhat.io/rhel9/go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 10, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.redhat.io/rhel10/go-toolset

Pull the container image from the Red Hat registry before running your container and performing actions.

Procedure

  • Pull the required image:

    • For an image based on RHEL 8, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 9, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 10, enter: 

      # podman pull registry.access.redhat.com/ubi10/go-toolset

Go Toolset packages are part of the Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBIs) repositories, which means you can install Go Toolset as an addition to the base UBI container image. To keep the container image size small, install only individual packages instead of the entire Go Toolset.

Alternatively, you can install the UBI Go Toolset container image to access Go Toolset. For further information, see Pulling the UBI-based Go Toolset container image.

Prerequisites

  • An existing container file. For information on creating Containerfiles, see the Dockerfile reference page.

Procedure

  • To create a container image containing Go Toolset, add the following to your container file:

    • For an image based on RHEL 8, enter: 

      FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi8/ubi:latest

RUN yum module install -y go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 9, enter: 

      FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi:latest

RUN yum install -y go-toolset

    • For an image based on RHEL 10, enter: 

      FROM registry.access.redhat.com/ubi10/ubi:latest

RUN yum install -y go-toolset

Chapter 6. Changes in Go Toolset 1.23
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RHEL provides Go Toolset in version 1.23. Notable enhancements include:

  • The for-range loop accepts iterator functions of the following types:

    • func(func() bool)
    • func(func(K) bool)

    • func(func(K, V) bool)

      Calls of the iterator argument function create the iteration values for the for-range loop. For reference links, see the upstream release notes.

  • The Go Toolchain can collect usage and breakage statistics to help the Go team to understand how the Go Toolchain is used and working. By default, Go Telemetry does not upload telemetry data and stores it only locally. For further information, see the upstream Go Telemetry documentation.
  • The go vet subcommand includes the stdversion analyzer which flags references to symbols that are too new for the version of Go you use in the referring file.
  • The cmd and cgo features support the -ldflags option to pass flags to the C linker. The go command uses this flag automatically to avoid argument list too long errors when you use a very large CGO_LDFLAGS environment variable.
  • The trace utility tolerates partially broken traces and attempts to recover the trace data. This is useful in case of crashes because you can get the trace leading up to the crash.
  • The traceback printed by the runtime after an unhandled panic or other fatal error carries indentation to distinguish the stack trace of the goroutine from the first goroutine.
  • The compiler build time overhead of using profile-guided optimization was reduced to single-digit percentage.
  • The new -bindnow linker flag enables immediate function binding when building a dynamically-linked ELF binary.
  • The //go:linkname linker directive no longer refer to internal symbols in the standard library and the runtime that are not marked with //go:linkname on their definition.
  • If a program no longer refers to a Timer or Ticker, garbage collection cleans them up immediately even if their Stop method has not been called. The timer channel associated with a Timer or Ticker is now unbuffered with capacity 0. This ensures that, every time a Reset or Stop method is called, no stale values are not sent or received after the call.
  • The new unique package provides facilities for canonicalizing values, such as interning or hash-consing.
  • The new iter package provides the basic definitions to work with user-defined iterators.
  • The slices and maps packages introduce several new functions that work with iterators.
  • The new structs package provides types for struct fields that modify properties of the containing struct type, such as memory layout.

  • Minor changes are made in the following packages:

    • archive/tar
    • crypto/tls
    • crypto/x509
    • database/sql
    • debug/elf
    • encoding/binary
    • go/ast
    • go/types
    • math/rand/v2
    • net
    • net/http
    • net/http/httptest
    • net/netips
    • path/filepath
    • reflect
    • runtime/debug
    • runtime/pprof
    • runtime/trace
    • slices
    • sync
    • sync/atomic
    • syscall
    • testing/fstest
    • text/template
    • time
    • unicode/utf16

For more information, see the upstream release notes.

Go Toolset is a rolling Application Stream, and Red Hat supports only the latest version. For more information, see the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle document.

Legal Notice
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