113 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
113 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
+++
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date = "2015-10-12"
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title = "Building Golang CLI Tools Update"
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tags = ["golang"]
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description = "After my previous post on using a `Makefile` to set version and build info I got some valuable feedback from other Gophers. Here's an update."
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slug = "building-golang-cli-tools-update"
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In my [previous post][previous] I discussed how to use a `Makefile` to set version and
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build information at compile time. Although this approach may work fine for you, it has
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three drawbacks I want to discuss.
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### 1. Simplicity
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Andrew responded on the [golang-nuts mailing list][golang-nuts] with the following comment:
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> To me it seems like you took something simple and cross platform "go generate" + "go install/build" and turned it into something more complicated and less portable.
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Although I'm not sure `go generate` is relevant in this case, I agree that on some level
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a `Makefile` is complicating things unnecessarily. Let's remove it!
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### 2. Non-reproducable builds
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Guilio responded with:
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> I only have an issue with buildTime: it makes the build not reproducible.
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This is a valid point. The idea that if you compile a given version of your application,
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the resulting binary's hash (be it MD5 or whatever) should be equal to that of any other
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binary build from that specific version.
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By using `BuildTime` the binary is never the same.
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Build time is also irrelevant. It does not matter _when_ a binary was compiled, but it
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_does matter_ which precise version was build.
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Let's replace `BuildTime` with the current git commit hash instead.
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### 3. Why is there a `VERSION` file?
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If you're going to store version information under version control, you might as well
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put it right in the code, where it belongs.
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Let's remove `VERSION` and instead create a nice `version.go` to handle everything.
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## Let's refactor
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Okay, first things to go are `Makefile` and `VERSION`.
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Next, I created a `core/version.go` which contains the necessary version information.
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I've also taken the liberty of creating a proper struct for the version information,
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including major, minor and patch numbers, as well as a label and release name.
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package core
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import "fmt"
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type version struct {
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Major, Minor, Patch int
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Label string
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Name string
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}
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var Version = version{1, 2, 3, "dev", "Chuck Norris"}
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var Build string
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func (v version) String() string {
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if v.Label != "" {
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return fmt.Sprintf("Roll version %d.%d.%d-%s \"%s\"\nGit commit hash: %s", v.Major, v.Minor, v.Patch, v.Label, v.Name, Build)
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} else {
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return fmt.Sprintf("Roll version %d.%d.%d \"%s\"\nGit commit hash: %s", v.Major, v.Minor, v.Patch, v.Name, Build)
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}
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}
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As you can see, it's quite easy to set and update the version numbers, label and release name.
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`Build` is still set at compile time and contains the current git commit hash.
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Because the `go build` command is quite long, I've put it in a nice `build.sh` file that
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makes building easier.
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go build -ldflags "-X github.com/ariejan/roll/core.Build=`git rev-parse HEAD`" -o roll main.go
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This will result in a build that reports version information like this:
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$ ./roll version
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Roll version 1.2.3-dev "Chuck Norris"
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Git commit hash: b72b076af8b18ef4f6b10296f12840f23258acec
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### Check that SHA
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If you want, you can [grab the code][code] and run `./build.sh` yourself. The resulting binary
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has a SHA-1 of `3ad7509279690d99e4144332dc200ede732663fd`. Yay for reproducable builds!
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### Naming variables in ldlags
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A short note on Peter Kleiweg's comment. He pointed out that I could use
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"-X main.Build=`git rev-parse HEAD`"
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This would be true if the `Build` variable is in the `main` package. But because it's
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not (it's in `core`) I have to specify the full package name.
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## Thank you!
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Thanks to all the awesome gophers responding to my previous post! It's great to get
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feedback and get to learn more about Golang. Keep the comments coming, please!
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[previous]: https://ariejan.net/2015/10/03/a-makefile-for-golang-cli-tools/
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[golang-nuts]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/golang-nuts
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[code]: https://github.com/ariejan/roll
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