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Using submodules

Go modules supports nesting of modules, which gives us submodules. This example shows you how.

The resulting code can be found at https://github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules.

Background

The official modules proposal predicts that most projects will follow the simplest approach of using a single Go module per repository, which typically means creating one go.mod file located in the root directory of a repository. However, there are cases when multiple modules in a single repository are worth the extra on-going work, and here we show a runnable example of how to create a multiple module repository with Go submodules.

Example Overview

The end result will be similar to the following, with three modules defined by the three go.mod files:

.
|-- go.mod
|-- b
|   |-- go.mod
|   `-- b.go
`-- a
    |-- go.mod
    `-- a.go

In this walkthrough:

  • We create a root module and two submodules.
  • We version the submodules independently by applying separate git tags (v0.1.1 and v1.0.0)
  • We have a import b to make things slightly more interesting.
  • We finish by creating a module on our local filesystem to use our a command.

Note that the root go.mod is optional here. (In general, you can have a multi-module repository without a root go.mod, and without any nesting of modules. The techniques shown in this example also apply to multi-module repositories that do not have any nested modules).

Walkthrough

Initialise a directory as a git repo, and add an appropriate remote:

$ mkdir -p /home/gopher/scratchpad/submodules
$ cd /home/gopher/scratchpad/submodules
$ git init -q
$ git remote add origin https://github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules

Define a root module, at the root of the repo, commit and push:

$ go mod init github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules
go: creating new go.mod: module github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules
$ git add go.mod
$ git commit -q -am 'Initial commit'
$ git push -q

Create a sub package b and test that it builds:

$ mkdir b
$ cd b
$ cat <<EOD >b.go
package b

const Name = "Gopher"
EOD
$ go mod init github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b
go: creating new go.mod: module github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b
$ go test
?   	github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b	[no test files]

Commit, tag and push our new package:

$ cd ..
$ git add b
$ git commit -q -am 'Add package b'
$ git push -q
$ git tag b/v0.1.1
$ git push -q origin b/v0.1.1

Create a main package that will use b:

$ mkdir a
$ cd a
$ cat <<EOD >a.go
package main

import (
	"github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b"
	"fmt"
)

const Name = b.Name

func main() {
	fmt.Println(Name)
}
EOD
$ go mod init github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/a
go: creating new go.mod: module github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/a

Build and run that main package:

$ go run .
go: finding github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b v0.1.1
go: downloading github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b v0.1.1
go: extracting github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b v0.1.1
Gopher
$ go list -m github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b
github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/b v0.1.1

Notice how we resolve to the tagged version of package b.

Commit, tag and push our main package:

$ cd ..
$ git add a
$ git commit -q -am 'Add package a'
$ git push -q
$ git tag a/v1.0.0
$ git push -q origin a/v1.0.0

Create another random module and use our a command from there:

$ cd $(mktemp -d)
$ export GOBIN=$PWD/.bin
$ export PATH=$GOBIN:$PATH
$ go mod init example.com/blah
go: creating new go.mod: module example.com/blah
$ go get github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/[email protected]
go: finding github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/a v1.0.0
go: downloading github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/a v1.0.0
go: extracting github.com/go-modules-by-example/submodules/a v1.0.0
$ a
Gopher

Version details

go version go1.12.5 linux/amd64