Essential Go Commands: Build, Install, Get, Test, and More
This guide presents a concise reference of the most frequently used Go commands—including go build, go install, go get, go doc, godoc, go test, go list, and go fix—explaining each command’s purpose, typical usage, and key flags to help developers work efficiently with the Go toolchain.
Go provides a comprehensive set of command‑line tools that can be inspected with go. This article collects the most common commands and explains their purpose and typical usage.
go build
The go build command compiles source code. When building a package, it also compiles any dependent packages that are required.
go install
go installcompiles and installs the specified package along with its dependencies. If a dependency has not yet been compiled, the command builds it first.
go get
go getdownloads or updates the named packages and their dependencies from the Internet, then compiles and installs them.
go doc and godoc
go docprints the documentation attached to a Go program entity; the entity’s identifier is passed as an argument. godoc is a more powerful tool for displaying package documentation and has been a built‑in command since Go 1.5.
go test
go testruns tests for Go programs. Tests are executed at the package level.
go list
go listlists information about the specified packages.
go fix and go tool fix
go fix(or go tool fix) rewrites source files, converting code written for older Go versions to the current language version.
The article also notes that a complete PDF version of the command reference is available for download.
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