Calling an external command in Go

Question

How can I call an external command in GO? I need to call an external program and wait for it to finish execution. before the next statement is executed.

Answer 1

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "os/exec"
  "log"
)

func main() {
  cmd := exec.Command("ls", "-ltr")
  out, err := cmd.CombinedOutput()
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
  fmt.Printf("%s\n", out)
}

Try online

Answer 2

You need to use the exec package : start a command using Command and use Run to wait for completion.

cmd := exec.Command("yourcommand", "some", "args")
if err := cmd.Run(); err != nil { 
    fmt.Println("Error: ", err)
}   

If you just want to read the result, you may use Output instead of Run.