Automating Cross Compiling Go Programs on Linux

Programs written in Go can be compiled for a variety of different targets. Cross compiling is easy, but takes a lot of effort.

In order to automate cross compilation the following Ruby script is built to take that burden off you.

Save the script in a file (for example with the name compile.rb) in the directory where you would like to compile and run it using ruby compile.rb.

arch_targets = ["386","amd64"]
os_targets = ["darwin", "linux", "windows"]

program_name = 'main'
file_to_compile = './main.go'

os_targets.each do |os|
    arch_targets.each do |arch|

        file_name = program_name + '_' + os + '_' + arch
        ENV['GOOS'] = os
        ENV['GOARCH'] = arch

        command = 'go build -o build/' + file_name + " " + file_to_compile

        system(command)

        if os == 'windows'
            File.rename('./build/'+file_name, './build/'+file_name+'.exe')
    end
  end
end

About the script:

• In the array arch_targets we specify which computer architectures we want to compile for. Some supported architectures are: arm, 386, arm64, amd64
• In the array os_targets we specify which operating system we want to compile for. Some supported operating systems are: android, darwin, freebsd, linux, openbsd, netbsd, windows.
• program_name is the name of the executable after compilation.
• file_to_compile is the name of the file you would like to compile, or your entry file containing your main function in case your program contains multiple files.