[go] What should be the values of GOPATH and GOROOT?

I'm trying to install doozer like this:

$ goinstall github.com/ha/doozer

I get these errors.

goinstall: os: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: fmt: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: io: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: reflect: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: math: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: rand: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: url: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: net: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: sync: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: runtime: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: strings: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: sort: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: strconv: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: bytes: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: log: go/build: package could not be found locally
goinstall: encoding/binary: go/build: package could not be found locally

This question is related to go gopath

The answer is


As mentioned above:

The GOPATH environment variable specifies the location of your workspace.

For Windows, this worked for me (in Ms-dos window):

set GOPATH=D:\my_folder_for_go_code\

This creates a GOPATH variable that Ms-dos recognizes when used as follows:

cd %GOPATH%

I read the go help gopath docs and was still incredibly confused, but found this little nugget from another go doc page:

The GOPATH environment variable specifies the location of your workspace. It is likely the only environment variable you'll need to set when developing Go code.

http://golang.org/doc/code.html#GOPATH


Here is a my simple setup:

directory for go related things: ~/programming/go
directory for go compiler/tools: ~/programming/go/go-1.4
directory for go software      : ~/programming/go/packages

GOROOT, GOPATH, PATH are set as following:

export GOROOT=/home/user/programming/go/go-1.4
export GOPATH=/home/user/programming/go/packages
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin

So, in short:

GOROOT is for compiler/tools that comes from go installation.
GOPATH is for your own go projects / 3rd party libraries (downloaded with "go get").


If you are using the distro go, you should point to where the include files are, for example:

$ rpm -ql golang | grep include
/usr/lib/golang/include

(This is for Fedora 20)


I had to append

export GOROOT=/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.10.1/libexec

to my ~/.bash_profile on Mac OS X


in osx, i installed with brew, here is the setting that works for me

GOPATH="$HOME/my_go_work_space" //make sure you have this folder created

GOROOT="/usr/local/Cellar/go/1.10/libexec"

As of 2020 and Go version 1.13+, in Windows the best way for updating GOPATH is just typing in command prompt:

setx GOPATH C:\mynewgopath

The GOPATH should not point to the Go installation, but rather to your workspace (see https://golang.org/doc/code.html#GOPATH). Whenever you install some package with go get or go install, it will land within the GOPATH. That is why it warns you, that you most definitely do not want random packages from the internet to be dumped into your official installation.


GOPATH is discussed here:

The GOPATH Environment Variable

GOPATH may be set to a colon-separated list of paths inside which Go code, package objects, and executables may be found.

Set a GOPATH to use goinstall to build and install your own code and external libraries outside of the Go tree (and to avoid writing Makefiles).

And GOROOT is discussed here:

$GOROOT The root of the Go tree, often $HOME/go. This defaults to the parent of the directory where all.bash is run. If you choose not to set $GOROOT, you must run gomake instead of make or gmake when developing Go programs using the conventional makefiles.


You don't need to explicitly set GOROOT (Modern versions of Go can figure it out on their own based on the location of the go binary that you run).

Also, got the follow error when trying to work with vgo:

go: modules disabled inside GOPATH/src by GO111MODULE=auto; see 'go help modules'

Removing GOROOT, updating my GOPATH and export GO111MODULE="on" resolved the issue.

GOPATH see in here

GOPATH may be set to a colon-separated list of paths inside which Go code, package objects, and executables may be found.

Set a GOPATH to use goinstall to build and install your own code and external libraries outside of the Go tree (and to avoid writing Makefiles).


Here is one solution (single user):

GOROOT=$HOME/.local # your go executable is in $GOROOT/bin
GOPATH=$HOME/.gopath
PATH=$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin:$PATH

go complains if you change .gopath to .go.

I wish they went with how the rust/cargo guys did and just put everything at one place.


Regarding GOROOT specifically, Go 1.9 will set it automatically to its installation path.
Even if you have multiple Go installed, calling the 1.9.x one will set GOROOT to /path/to/go/1.9 (before, if not set, it assumed a default path like /usr/local/go or c:\Go).

See CL Go Review 53370:

The go tool will now use the path from which it was invoked to attempt to locate the root of the Go install tree.
This means that if the entire Go installation is moved to a new location, the go tool should continue to work as usual.

This may be overriden by setting GOROOT in the environment, which should only be done in unusual circumstances.
Note that this does not affect the result of the runtime.GOROOT() function, which will continue to report the original installation location; this may be fixed in later releases.


First run go env.
If you see that the go isn't installed, you can install it via homebrew or via package and/or other ways.
If you are seeing output then your Go is installed.
It shows you all the envs that are set and are not.

If you see empty for GOROOT:

  1. Run which go (On my computer : /usr/local/go/bin/go)
  2. then export like this export GOROOT=/usr/local/go

If you see empty for GOPATH:

  1. Create any directory anywhere on your computer for go projects in my case: ~/GO_PROJECTS
  2. Then export GOPATH=~/GO_PROJECTS

Starting with go 1.8 (Q2 2017), GOPATH will be set for you by default to $HOME/go

See issue 17262 and Rob Pike's comment:

$HOME/go it will be.
There is no single best answer but this is short and sweet, and it can only be a problem to choose that name if $HOME/go already exists, which will only happy for experts who already have go installed and will understand GOPATH.


the values should be (MACOS):

GOROOT="/usr/local/go" --> all binaries file core go
GOPATH="/Applications/proyectos/go" --> the route to workspace (custom workspace)

There is also a case where when we use go it compiles all the go files.

So lets say we had one file main.go and later we changed the current file to main_old.go and then added our new main.go file. Then when we build our app all the go files will get compiled. So the error that's happening might be due to compilation error in some other go files.


Once Go lang is installed, GOROOT is the root directory of the installation.

When I exploded Go Lang binary in Windows C:\ directory, my GOROOT should be C:\go. If Installed with Windows installer, it may be C:\Program Files\go (or C:\Program Files (x86)\go, for 64-bit packages)

 GOROOT = C:\go

while my GOPATH is location of Go lang source code or workspace.

If my Go lang source code is located at C:\Users\\GO_Workspace, your GOPATH would be as below:

 GOPATH = C:\Users\<xyz>\GO_Workspace

Lots of answers but no substance, like robots doing cut and paste on what's on their system. There is no need to set GOROOT as an environment variable. However, there is a beneficial need to set the GOPATH environment variable, and if not set it defaults to ${HOME}/go/ folder.

It is the PATH environment variable that you must pay attention because this variable is the variable that can change your go version. Not GOROOT! Forget GOROOT.

Now, if you switch or change to a new go version, your downloaded packages will use the default $HOME/go folder and it will mixed-up with whatever your previous go version was. This is not good.

Therefore, this is where GOPATH you need to define in order to isolate downloaded packages of the new go version.

In summary, forget GOROOT. Think more on GOPATH.