Packaging config files

[Dump Hole]

How would go package the config files for an app?  I have created some config files that need to be loaded at runtime, but these files are not included as part of the `go install` command, so when you are executing the app binary, these files are missing.

[Luna Duclos]

I tend to just package reasonable defaults into my code, which my app defaults to if lacking the default config files

On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Dump Hole <dumpst...@gmail.com> wrote:

How would go package the config files for an app?  I have created some config files that need to be loaded at runtime, but these files are not included as part of the `go install` command, so when you are executing the app binary, these files are missing.

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[Dump Hole]

Well, the problem isn't the default values, it's the fact that `go install` only packages the source code and does not include the supplemental files.  This is a small issue but petty.  I can easily copy-paste these files to go/bin folder, but I feel like this is very hackish, unless that's the recommended way of doing it.

Does go has a build file of some sort, where I can specify which files to include in the build process?

[Dan Kortschak]

On Sun, 2015-01-11 at 16:44 -0800, Dump Hole wrote:
> Well, the problem isn't the default values, it's the fact that `go
> install`
> only packages the source code and does not include the supplemental
> files.
>

Why not specify a config location and check whether the config is there,
if it isn't write a default to that location?

[Michael Daffin]

This depends on what type of application you are writing.

If it is a service on Linux then the configs should go in /etc somewhere and you just leave that up to the users/packagers to do that. As suggested if your app has defaults built in then they should be used if the config dose not exist.

If it is a user land tool that has a config per user then the settings file should be written by the application in the default place for user configuration on the system ie somewhere in  %AppData% on windows and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME on linux.

Either way they really should not go in $GOPATH/bin

If you must do this in an automated way then I suggest wrapping the build commands in a Makefile that also installs the other files you need.

[Dump Hole]

I kept forgetting that go development environment is still very similar to C.

These config files are part of the files that I would check into git, so they will naturally live in the go/src folder.  So it does look like `go install` is not enough that I would have to create a makefile for each project, and specify which files I want to include when I release my app.  I can't just 'ship' the source folder.

[Dobrosław Żybort]

Try https://github.com/GeertJohan/go.rice it should find your config files in go/src folders.

[Dan Kortschak]

Why not?

[Kelsey Hightower]

I guess the first question to ask: Are these really configuration files? Can they be changed independently of the binary? If the answer is yes and you really want to read them from a file system why not stick them under /etc/${app}.conf?

IMO if you plan to bake the configs in the binary, then just store values in a config package:

package config

var (

    Config1 = "value"

    Config2 = "value"

)

But doing this seems odd. I think a better option is to start by deploying the config files using the same mechanism used to distribute the binary.

[DH]

Thanks! I will give this a try.  This looks like something I am looking for.