4 ms·

Once you use CGO, portability is gone. Your binary is no longer staticly compiled. This can happen subtley without you knowing it. If you use a function in the

Once you use CGO, portability is gone. Your binary is no longer staticly compiled. This can happen subtley without you knowing it. If you use a function in the standard library that happens to call into a CGO function, you are no longer static. This happens with things like os.UserHomeDir or some networking things like DNS lookups. You can "force" go to do static compiling by disabling CGO, but that means you can't use _any_ CGO. Which may not work if you require it for certain things like sqlite.

swills 10mo ago
You can definitely use CGO and still build statically, but you do need to set ldflags to include -static.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  You can even cross-compile doing that.
  - swills 10mo ago
    Yes, indeed, I do.
ncruces 10mo ago
There are at least a couple of ways to run SQLite without CGO.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  I think the standard answer here is modernc.org/sqlite.
  - apitman 10mo ago
    Careful, you're responding to the author of a wasm-based alternative.
    - ncruces 10mo ago
      No need to be careful. I won't bite. ;)
silverwind 10mo ago
> This happens with things like os.UserHomeDir or some networking things like DNS lookups. The docs do not mention this CGO dependency, are you sure? https://pkg.go.dev/os#UserHomeDir https://pkg.go.dev/os#UserHomeDir
- purpleidea 10mo ago
  I was surprised too, that I had to check the docs, so I assume the user was misinformed.
  - bitbasher 10mo ago
    Perhaps I misremembered or things changed? For instance, the os/user results in a dynamicly linked executable: https://play.golang.com/p/7QsmcjJI4H5 https://play.golang.com/p/7QsmcjJI4H5 There are multiple standard library functions that do it.. I recall some in "net" and some in "os".
    - telotortium 10mo ago
      os.UserHomeDir is specified to read the HOME environment variable, so it doesn’t require CGo. os/user does, but only to support NSS and LDAP, which are provided by libc. That’s also why net requires CGo- for getaddrinfo using resolv.conf
PunchyHamster 10mo ago
> Which may not work if you require it for certain things like sqlite. there is cgo-less sqlite implementation https://github.com/glebarez/go-sqlite https://github.com/glebarez/go-sqlite it seems to not be maintained much tho
- IceWreck 10mo ago
  You're linking to a different version - this is the one that most people use https://github.com/modernc-org/sqlite https://github.com/modernc-org/sqlite
  - debugnik 10mo ago
    Yes and no, the package above is a popular `database/sql` driver for the same SQLite port you linked.
hiAndrewQuinn 10mo ago
You don't need CGO for SQLite in most cases; I did a deep dive into it here. https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/you-don-t-need-cgo-to-use-sqlite-in-your-go-binary/ https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/you-don-t-need-cgo-to-use-...

swills 10mo ago

You can definitely use CGO and still build statically, but you do need to set ldflags to include -static.

tptacek 10mo ago
You can even cross-compile doing that.
- swills 10mo ago
  Yes, indeed, I do.

ncruces 10mo ago

There are at least a couple of ways to run SQLite without CGO.

tptacek 10mo ago
I think the standard answer here is modernc.org/sqlite.
- apitman 10mo ago
  Careful, you're responding to the author of a wasm-based alternative.
  - ncruces 10mo ago
    No need to be careful. I won't bite. ;)

silverwind 10mo ago

> This happens with things like os.UserHomeDir or some networking things like DNS lookups. The docs do not mention this CGO dependency, are you sure? https://pkg.go.dev/os#UserHomeDir https://pkg.go.dev/os#UserHomeDir

purpleidea 10mo ago
I was surprised too, that I had to check the docs, so I assume the user was misinformed.
- bitbasher 10mo ago
  Perhaps I misremembered or things changed? For instance, the os/user results in a dynamicly linked executable: https://play.golang.com/p/7QsmcjJI4H5 https://play.golang.com/p/7QsmcjJI4H5 There are multiple standard library functions that do it.. I recall some in "net" and some in "os".
  - telotortium 10mo ago
    os.UserHomeDir is specified to read the HOME environment variable, so it doesn’t require CGo. os/user does, but only to support NSS and LDAP, which are provided by libc. That’s also why net requires CGo- for getaddrinfo using resolv.conf

PunchyHamster 10mo ago

> Which may not work if you require it for certain things like sqlite. there is cgo-less sqlite implementation https://github.com/glebarez/go-sqlite https://github.com/glebarez/go-sqlite it seems to not be maintained much tho

IceWreck 10mo ago
You're linking to a different version - this is the one that most people use https://github.com/modernc-org/sqlite https://github.com/modernc-org/sqlite
- debugnik 10mo ago
  Yes and no, the package above is a popular `database/sql` driver for the same SQLite port you linked.

hiAndrewQuinn 10mo ago

You don't need CGO for SQLite in most cases; I did a deep dive into it here. https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/you-don-t-need-cgo-to-use-sqlite-in-your-go-binary/ https://til.andrew-quinn.me/posts/you-don-t-need-cgo-to-use-...