Cross-compile a Go package which uses sqlite3

#database #development #golang

When you use SQLite in your Go program, you are forced to use Cgo. While that works great, that breaks one of the nicest features of the Go toolchain: cross compilation.

Turns out there is actually a solution for this.

First, you need to install the musl-cross package (and we're assuming you're running this on macOS). musl-cross is a cross compilation toolchain.

1brew install FiloSottile/musl-cross/musl-cross

Once you have this installed, you can compile for Linux like this:

CC=x86_64-linux-musl-gcc CXX=x86_64-linux-musl-g++ GOARCH=amd64 GOOS=linux CGO_ENABLED=1 \
  go build -ldflags "-linkmode external -extldflags -static"

By updating the CC and CXX environment variables to point to the musl-cross toolchain, you can now cross compile with Cgo enabled.

You can also do the same when you want to cross compile to Windows. The instructions for that can be found here.

If this post was enjoyable or useful for you, please share it! If you have comments, questions, or feedback, you can email my personal email. To get new posts, subscribe use the RSS feed.