How Can cgo Facilitate Interfacing Go Programs with C Libraries?

Interfacing Go Programs with C Libraries through cgo

Integrating Go programs with existing C libraries can be achieved seamlessly using cgo. This tool enables the development of Go packages that interact with C code.

cgo Usage

To utilize cgo, follow these steps:

1. Create a Go source file (e.g., file.go) that imports the "C" pseudo-package and references C types, variables, or functions.
2. If necessary, include a comment before the "C" import to specify the header files for C compilation.
3. Run cgo [compiler options] file.go to transform the Go source into four output files: two Go source files, a C file for the Go compiler, and a C file for GCC.

Example

Consider the following Go code:

import "C"

func main() {
    C.printf(C.CString("Hello from Go!\n"))
}

The included comment specifies the header file:

// #include <stdio.h>

When run through cgo, this code will wrap the C printf function and call it from Go.

Additional Resources

Refer to the Go source code's misc/cgo/stdio and misc/cgo/gmp examples for practical applications of cgo in wrapping C libraries.

Note: cgo is not compatible with gccgo.

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