Golang support in Yocto Project greatly improved!

Since our first post about the Golang improvements being done for the Yocto Project 2.4 release we did another batch of improvements and tests on OpenEmbedded-Core. There are few worth mentioning features when we compare the feature set of initial Golang support, landed in Yocto Project 2.3, and the upcoming release after these changes:

• Upgrade to latest Go toolchain - Golang 1.9;
• Share runtime libraries to save storage space - critical for embedded systems;
• Parallel build of modules - greatly speed Go package and libraries packaging;
• SDK support - allowing for Yocto Project to generate cross-compilers for use targeting the embedded system specific requirements;
• Availability of Go dep tool which is likely to become the official dependency tracking tool for Go in Golang 1.10 release.

The contributions shortlog can be seen which can be seen below:

Matt Madison (23):
      go-native: remove dependency on go-bootstrap-native
      go-bootstrap-native: remove recipe
      go: split out go-runtime into separate recipe
      go.bbclass: remove GO_GCFLAGS nad GO_LDFLAGS
      go.bbclass: remove some xxx_FINAL variables
      go.bbclass: clean up CGO_xxx settings
      go: rename go.inc -> go-target.inc
      go-cross: take GOARM environment setting
      go: enable nativesdk builds for the toolchain
      go-crosssdk: add recipe
      go.bbclass: enable nativesdk builds for Go packages
      go-cross-canadian: add recipe
      go-runtime: extend to nativesdk builds
      goarch.bbclass: identify archs with Go dynamic linking support
      go-1.8: add patch for set soname in ELF shared objects
      go-runtime: build the Go runtime as a shared library
      go.bbclass: add support linking against shared runtime
      goarch.bbclass: set ARM_INSTRUCTION_SET to "arm"
      go: update to go 1.9
      go-crosssdk: fix host/target references and cleanup
      go: fix linking issues for nativesdk builds
      go: fixes for cross-canadian builds
      go.bbclass: set TMPDIR during compilation

Otavio Salvador (4):
      go-dep: Move bash dependency to -dev package
      go.bbclass: Add "ldflags" to QA skip list
      go.bbclass: Add ptest support
      Add Go toolchain support

The SDK support has been polished and it is likely few minor improvements are still going to be done. Now we have a very good base for Go usage in Yocto Project 2.4 and beyond.

To demonstrate how easy is to create a recipe to package a Go-based tool, we are pasting the go-dep_0.3.0.bb recipe below:

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SUMMARY = "Dependency management tool for Golang"
HOMEPAGE = "https://github.com/golang/dep"
LICENSE = "BSD-3-Clause"
LIC_FILES_CHKSUM = "file://src/${GO_IMPORT}/LICENSE;md5=1bad315647751fab0007812f70d42c0d"

GO_IMPORT = "github.com/golang/dep"
SRC_URI = "git://${GO_IMPORT}"

# Points to 0.3.0 tag
SRCREV = "7a91b794bbfbf1f3b8b79823799316451127801b"

inherit go

GO_INSTALL = "${GO_IMPORT}/cmd/dep"

RDEPENDS_${PN}-dev += "bash"

This is enough to properly build and install the Go dep tool. Isn’t it nice? :-D

O.S. Systems is greatly involved in Golang development within Yocto Project and is ready to assist you in your next great project, please contact us if you need help!