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Golang program to execute a specified executable/binary file

Here, we are going to learn how to execute a specified executable/binary file in Golang (Go Language)?
Submitted by Nidhi, on May 31, 2021 [Last updated : March 05, 2023]

Executing the specified shell script in Golang

Problem Solution:

Here, we will execute a specified executable/binary using exec.Command() function. The exec.Command() function returns an error, if we are unable to execute a specified shell script otherwise it will return the output of the executable file.

Program/Source Code:

The source code to execute specified executable/binary file is given below. The given program is compiled and executed on the ubuntu 18.04 operating system successfully.

Golang code to execute the specified shell script

hello.go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	fmt.Println("Hello World")
}

sample.go

// Golang program to execute a
// specified executable/binary file

package main

import "fmt"
import "os/exec"

func main() {
	res, err := exec.Command("./hello").Output()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	fmt.Printf("OUTPUT: %s", res)
}

Output:

$ go build hello.go 
$ go run sample.go 
OUTPUT: Hello World

Explanation:

In the above program, we declare the package main. The main package is used to tell the Go language compiler that the package must be compiled and produced the executable file. Here, we imported the required packages to predefined functions.

Here, we also created a script file "hello.go". And, we printed the "Hello World" message on the console screen.

In the main() function, we used exec.Command() function to execute the "hello" executable file and printed the "Hello World" message on the console screen.

Golang Shell Script Programs »

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