A simple Golang version manager
Note: Tested on MacOS only. Other Unix-based systems are assumed to work.
This tool assumes Go is already installed. It is based on Go's system for installing multiple versions of Go: https://go.dev/doc/manage-install . To get started:
# Add <repo-path>/bin to PATH
$ gvm --version
0.1.0
# We need to convert the existing Go environment
# into an environment compatible with gvm
$ gvm init
Root required, running: sudo bin/gvm init
Password:
Go environment is now compatible with 'gvm'
$ gvm list
Installed Go SDKs:
- 1.18 *When Go is used to install other versions of Go, it uses the following directories:
~/go/bin~/sdk
Running go install golang.org/dl/go<version>@latest will install a binary in ~/go/bin. This binary is used as an installer for the SDK at the specified version, by running ~/go/bin/go<version> download, the SDK is downloaded and extracted to ~/sdk/go<version>.
Tapping into this, we can build a wrapper around this to easily install multiple versions of Go. Introducing symlink files help abstract this so that tools that depend on go command can still function even though the version of Go is changing underneath them.
This is what gvm does. When you run gvm init, it will copy your Go installation to ~/sdk and rename the Go directory to go<version>. A symlink is created at ~/sdk/gocurrent that points to ~/sdk/go<version>. The original Go installation path, typically /usr/local/go, becomes a symlink that points to ~/sdk/gocurrent. This preserves the path of the Go binary that is registered in PATH. From this point forward, when switching versions of Go, gvm will only be updating ~/sdk/gocurrent.
Note: gvm init uses which go to find where Go is installed. If the path is a symlink, gvm init will traverse the symlink (and nested symlinks) to the real path of the Go installation and perform the init process. The top-level symlink will be preserved and redirect to ~/sdk/gocurrent.
More listed here: alts