pre-modules `go get` replacement needed, as it won't work outside of existsing module with modules enabled

[sirkon]

So, I am currently using official build (that tgz file) for Linux with export GO111MODULE=on. And I am having troubles building binaries in a old way outside of any existing module:

$ go get golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports
go: cannot find main module; see 'go help modules'

As you see, I am trying to download and build goimports and then put the binary into $GOPATH/bin with this go get call. Thus, we are having obvious usability downgrade. Everything is OK when I do this inside some existing module, BTW.

I believe there should be some kind of replacement. It is clear go get is not the best place for this sort of functionality after go modules enabled. I guess there should be a new command specially for this case.

[jonstaryuk]

There are some workarounds in the wiki FAQ and discussion in #25922.

That said, this was a frustrating part of upgrading to Go 1.11 and the current "best practices" aren't ideal, imo.

[agnivade]

Simply upgrading to 1.11 does not cause this issue. Explicitly setting GO111MODULE=on does. So that means you are explicitly telling the go command to work in module mode.

In any case, this is a duplicate of #24250.

[carlca]

I have come up with what is a partial solution. It is a shell script which simulates the go get action. The idea is that one copies the git clone url from github.com and then runs gog.sh [⌘]v. Of course, with Github.com you can copy the git clone url with just a couple of keystrokes. One can then run go run, go build or go install as usual.

The contents of gog.sh can be found at https://gist.github.com/carlca/e97eccd545f2465f1e2a0c42356e6ffd.

I use an alias to save me even more keystrokes, alias gog='gog.sh'!

[sirkon]

Translation into git clone is a bit too sophisticated IMO, I would rather go with something like

tmpDir=`mktemp`
cd $tmpDir
go mod init tmp/for/tool
go get $1

It creates temporary directory, cd into it, initializes a module within, perform go get which downloads, compiles and installs that damn binary :)

[ctd1500]

The "workaround" is very simple: set GO111MODULE=auto, or simply leave GO111MODULE unset and go get works just as it always has.

[sirkon]

GO111MODULE=off go get …

is harder than

<exec name> …