Cross compile Go on OSX

Question

I am trying to cross-compile a go app on OSX to build binaries for windows and linux  I have read everything what I could find on the net  Closest example that I have found has been published on  apart from many unfinished discussions on go-nuts mailing list    http   solovyov net en 2012 03 09 cross-compiling-go   yet it does not work on my installation  I have go 1 0 2  As 1 0 2 is quite recent it looks to me that all above examples do not apply to this version   Tried to do   make bash --no-clean with ENV vars set to 386 windows  it does build go  however it builds go for my installation which is darwin amd64 and completely ignores what is set in ENV that suppose to build different compiler   Any advises how it can be done  if it can be done at all

User · Answer

The process of creating executables for many platforms can be a little tedious, so I suggest to use a script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

package=$1
if [[ -z "$package" ]]; then
  echo "usage: $0 <package-name>"
  exit 1
fi
package_name=$package

#the full list of the platforms: https://golang.org/doc/install/source#environment
platforms=(
"darwin/386"
"dragonfly/amd64"
"freebsd/386"
"freebsd/amd64"
"freebsd/arm"
"linux/386"
"linux/amd64"
"linux/arm"
"linux/arm64"
"netbsd/386"
"netbsd/amd64"
"netbsd/arm"
"openbsd/386"
"openbsd/amd64"
"openbsd/arm"
"plan9/386"
"plan9/amd64"
"solaris/amd64"
"windows/amd64"
"windows/386" )

for platform in "${platforms[@]}"
do
    platform_split=(${platform//\// })
    GOOS=${platform_split[0]}
    GOARCH=${platform_split[1]}
    output_name=$package_name'-'$GOOS'-'$GOARCH
    if [ $GOOS = "windows" ]; then
        output_name+='.exe'
    fi

    env GOOS=$GOOS GOARCH=$GOARCH go build -o $output_name $package
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        echo 'An error has occurred! Aborting the script execution...'
        exit 1
    fi
done

I checked this script on OSX only

gist - go-executable-build.sh

User · Answer

If you use Homebrew on OS X  then you have a simpler solution     brew install go --with-cc-common   Linux  Darwin  and Windows   or      brew install go --with-cc-all   All the cross-compilers   Use reinstall if you already have go installed

User · Answer

With Go 1 5 they seem to have improved the cross compilation process  meaning it is built in now  No   make bash-ing or brew-ing  required  The process is described here but for the TLDR-ers  like me  out there  you just set the GOOS and the GOARCH environment variables and run the go build   For the even lazier copy-pasters  like me  out there  do something like this if you re on a  nix system   env GOOS linux GOARCH arm go build -v github com path to your app   You even learned the env trick  which let you set environment variables for that command only  completely free of charge

User · Answer

You can do this pretty easily using Docker  so no extra libs required  Just run this command    docker run --rm -it -v   GOPATH   go -w  go src github com iron-io ironcli golang 1 4 2-cross sh -c   for GOOS in darwin linux windows  do   for GOARCH in 386 amd64  do     echo  Building  GOOS- GOARCH      export GOOS  GOOS     export GOARCH  GOARCH     go build -o bin ironcli- GOOS- GOARCH   done done     You can find more details in this post   https   medium com iron-io-blog how-to-cross-compile-go-programs-using-docker-beaa102a316d

User · Answer

Thanks to kind and patient help from golang-nuts  recipe is the following   1   One needs to compile Go compiler for different target platforms and architectures  This is done from src folder in go installation  In my case Go installation is located in  usr local go thus to compile a compiler you need to issue make utility  Before doing this you need to know some caveats   There is an issue about CGO library when cross compiling so it is needed to disable CGO library   Compiling is done by changing location to source dir  since compiling has to be done in that folder  cd  usr local go src   then compile the Go compiler   sudo GOOS windows GOARCH 386 CGO ENABLED 0   make bash --no-clean   You need to repeat this step for each OS and Architecture you wish to cross compile by changing the GOOS and GOARCH parameters   If you are working in user mode as I do  sudo is needed because Go compiler is in the system dir  Otherwise you need to be logged in as super user  On Mac you may need to enable configure SU access  it is not available by default   but if you have managed to install Go you possibly already have root access   2  Once you have all cross compilers built  you can happily cross compile your application by using the following settings for example   GOOS windows GOARCH 386 go build -o appname exe appname go  GOOS linux GOARCH 386 CGO ENABLED 0 go build -o appname linux appname go   Change the GOOS and GOARCH to targets you wish to build    If you encounter problems with CGO include CGO ENABLED 0 in the command line  Also note that binaries for linux and mac have no extension so you may add extension for the sake of having different files  -o switch instructs Go to make output file similar to old compilers for c c   thus above used appname linux can be any other extension

User · Answer

for people who need CGO enabled and cross compile from OSX targeting   windows   I needed CGO enabled while compiling for windows from my mac since I had imported the https   github com mattn go-sqlite3 and it needed it   Compiling according to other answers gave me and error    usr local go src runtime cgo gcc windows amd64 c 8 10  fatal error   windows h  file not found   If you re like me and you have to compile with CGO  This is what I did   1 We re going to cross compile for windows with a CGO dependent library  First we need a cross compiler installed like mingw-w64  brew install mingw-w64   This will probably install it here  usr local opt mingw-w64 bin    2 Just like other answers we first need to add our windows arch to our go compiler toolchain now  Compiling a compiler needs a compiler  weird sentence  compiling go compiler needs a separate pre-built compiler  We can download a prebuilt binary or build from source in a folder eg    Documents go now we can improve our Go compiler  according to top answer but this time with CGO ENABLED 1 and our separate prebuilt compiler GOROOT BOOTSTRAP Pooya is my username    cd  usr local go src sudo GOOS windows GOARCH amd64 CGO ENABLED 1 GOROOT BOOTSTRAP  Users Pooya Documents go   make bash --no-clean sudo GOOS windows GOARCH 386 CGO ENABLED 1 GOROOT BOOTSTRAP  Users Pooya Documents go   make bash --no-clean   3 Now while compiling our Go code use mingw to compile our go file targeting windows with CGO enabled   GOOS  windows  GOARCH  386  CGO ENABLED  1  CC   usr local opt mingw-w64 bin i686-w64-mingw32-gcc  go build hello go GOOS  windows  GOARCH  amd64  CGO ENABLED  1  CC   usr local opt mingw-w64 bin x86 64-w64-mingw32-gcc  go build hello go

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