Start the CLI project

The CLI will allows us to run the learning-go-api utility functions from the command line.

So, in this section we will:

1. Create the CLI folder
2. Init the git repository
3. Enable dependency tracking for the Go code
4. Create the first Go file
5. Create a repository in github.com
6. Commit and push the initial version

The following commands are needed for steps 1, 2, and 3:

mkdir learning-go-cli && cd learning-go-cli
git init .
go mod init github.com/renato0307/learning-go-cli

Replace the renato0307 part by the correct value for you. This should be the value of a GitHub repository where you will store the project.

The go mod init command initializes and writes a new go.mod file in the current directory, in effect creating a new module rooted at the current directory.

The go.mod file describes the module’s properties, including its dependencies on other modules and on versions of Go.

Each time a new dependency is added running the go mod tidy command will update the go.mod file.

The go command maintains a file named go.sum containing the expected cryptographic hashes of the content of specific module versions.

Next, open vscode by typing:

code .

Create a file named main.go with the following contents:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

To run this code, go back to the command line and enter:

go run main.go

You should see in the output:

Hello, World!

Next, go to https://github.com and create a repository.

In my case I named it learning-go-cli.

After the repository is created, add it as remote origin and do the initial commit and push:

echo "# learning-go-cli" >> README.md
git add .
git remote add origin git@github.com:renato0307/learning-go-cli.git
git commit -m "initial version"
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

With this all set, we are ready to start doing some real code.

Next

The next section is Introduction to Cobra.