How to Set the Gopath Environment Variable on Ubuntu? What File Must I Edit

What should be the values of GOPATH and GOROOT?

GOPATH is discussed in the cmd/go documentation:

The GOPATH environment variable lists places to look for Go code. On
Unix, the value is a colon-separated string. On Windows, the value is
a semicolon-separated string. On Plan 9, the value is a list.

GOPATH must be set to get, build and install packages outside the
standard Go tree.

GOROOT is discussed in the installation instructions:

The Go binary distributions assume they will be installed in
/usr/local/go (or c:\Go under Windows), but it is possible to install
the Go tools to a different location. In this case you must set the
GOROOT environment variable to point to the directory in which it was
installed.

For example, if you installed Go to your home directory you should add
the following commands to $HOME/.profile:

export GOROOT=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

Note: GOROOT must be set only when installing to a custom location.

(updated version of Chris Bunch's answer.)

When should you set the $GOPATH variable?

From the documentation:

The Go path is used to resolve import statements.

The GOPATH environment variable lists places to look for Go code.

When using modules, GOPATH is no longer used for resolving imports. However, it is still used to store downloaded source code (in GOPATH/pkg/mod) and compiled commands (in GOPATH/bin).

Assuming you're using modules, which you probably should be, the setting of GOPATH will not impact your projects regardless of where you put them. It only needs to be set somewhere so the Go tools have a cache to store libraries and binaries.

Setting GOPATH on Ubuntu - still getting error

Okay guys, I figured out the problem.

https://github.com/joefitzgerald/go-plus/issues/386

here it has been discussed. I will just copy it from that

Linux folks, particularly those running Ubuntu. I believe I have reproduced your issues and I think they have to do with where you are setting your GOPATH and PATH.

• ~/.profile: If you set them here, $GOPATH will be set in Atom when you launch Atom for the first time from the launcher in the toolbar

• ~/.bashrc If you set them here, $GOPATH will be set in Atom when you launch Atom for the first time from the terminal
  Thus, to ensure GOPATH and PATH are set correctly regardless of how you launch Atom, you should put the following (or similar) in both ~/.profile and ~/.bashrc:

export GOPATH=$HOME/work

export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:/usr/local/go/bin:$PATH

Obviously the above doesn't apply exactly if bash isn't your default shell, but I trust that if you're a user of a different shell, you can grok what I am saying above and apply the same principles to your particular environment.

Can I set the GOPATH using the go command line tool?

Instead of trying to have a GOPATH per project to separate dependencies, work with Go modules.

A short intro on Go modules: https://ncona.com/2020/10/introduction-to-golang-modules/

Indepth, official intro: https://blog.golang.org/using-go-modules

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My intro:

In your repository call go init yourModuleName to start working with go modules.

Once initialized, to me the most important command is go mod tidy. You call that and it cleans up your go.mod/go.sum files, removing what is not needed and adding what is needed.

To add a new dependency call go get dependencyname from within your project folder to add it to your go.mod file and be able to use it in your code.

To update a dependency, just call go get dependencyname again and it will update the version to the latest available in go.mod file.

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