go-where

A library for determining the root path of an executable. Supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

myapp.go:

package main

import (
  "fmt"
  "os"
  "github.com/coreybutler/go-where"
)

func main() {
  executable := os.Args[1]
  path, err := where.Find(executable)

  if err != nil {
    panic(err)
  }

  fmt.Print(path)
}

Run this with:

$ go run myapp.go node.exe
C:\nodejs\node.exe

Alternative function

where.FindAll() is also available. This method returns a slice of strings ([]string) containing the paths where the executable/binary is located. This is useful for identifying multiple installations of a particular program. An empty slice is returned if the file cannot be found.

File Extensions

It is best to supply the file extension of the executable, but this library will attempt to identify executables in two manners.

By Permissions If the file has explicit execute permissions, it will be considered "executable" and returned by the Find and FindAll methods.

By extension This module attempts to determine if a file is executable by its file extension.

For example:

fmt.Print(where.Find("node"))

// C:\nodejs\node.exe

File extension identification is limited to a hard coded list of known extensions. See the files named expand_*.go.

--

Copyright (c) 2021 Corey Butler and contributors.