Getting Started

Install the Go tools

If you are upgrading from an older version of Go you must first remove the existing version.

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

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

Test your installation

Check that Go is installed correctly by setting up a workspace and building a simple program, as follows.

Create your workspace directory, $HOME/go%USERPROFILE%\go. (If you'd like to use a different directory, you will need to set the GOPATH environment variable.)

Next, make the directory src/hello inside your workspace, and in that directory create a file named hello.go that looks like:

package main

import "fmt"

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

Then build it with the go tool:

$ cd $HOME/go/src/hello
$ go build

C:\> cd %USERPROFILE%\go\src\hello
C:\Users\Gopher\go\src\hello> go build

The command above will build an executable named hellohello.exe in the directory alongside your source code. Execute it to see the greeting:

$ ./hello
hello, world

C:\Users\Gopher\go\src\hello> hello
hello, world

If you see the "hello, world" message then your Go installation is working.

You can run go install to install the binary into your workspace's bin directory or go clean -i to remove it.

Before rushing off to write Go code please read the How to Write Go Code document, which describes some essential concepts about using the Go tools.

Installing extra Go versions

It may be useful to have multiple Go versions installed on the same machine, for example, to ensure that a package's tests pass on multiple Go versions. Once you have one Go version installed, you can install another (such as 1.10.7) as follows:

$ go get golang.org/dl/go1.10.7
$ go1.10.7 download

The newly downloaded version can be used like go:

$ go1.10.7 version
go version go1.10.7 linux/amd64

All Go versions available via this method are listed on the download page. You can find where each of these extra Go versions is installed by looking at its GOROOT; for example, go1.10.7 env GOROOT. To uninstall a downloaded version, just remove its GOROOT directory and the goX.Y.Z binary.

Uninstalling Go

To remove an existing Go installation from your system delete the go directory. This is usually /usr/local/go under Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD or c:\Go under Windows.

You should also remove the Go bin directory from your PATH environment variable. Under Linux and FreeBSD you should edit /etc/profile or $HOME/.profile. If you installed Go with the macOS package then you should remove the /etc/paths.d/go file. Windows users should read the section about setting environment variables under Windows.

Getting help

For help, see the list of Go mailing lists, forums, and places to chat.

Report bugs either by running “go bug”, or manually at the Go issue tracker.