Golang - Build an executable and periodically execute a program via cron

To build an executable file in Go (also known as Golang), you can use the go build command. This command takes the name of the Go source file as an argument, and compiles the source code into an executable file with the same name as the source file.

For example, if you have a Go source file called "myprogram.go", you can compile it into an executable file called "myprogram" using the following command:

Build An Executable

go build myprogram.go

go build .

Once you have built the executable file, you can use the cron utility to periodically execute the program. The cron utility is a Unix-like task scheduler that allows you to schedule tasks to be executed automatically at specific times or intervals.

To use cron to execute your program periodically, you will need to create a cron job. A cron job is a specific task that is executed by cron at a specified time or interval. To create a cron job, you will need to edit the crontab file, which is a file that contains a list of cron jobs that cron will execute.

To edit the crontab file, you can use the crontab -e command. This command opens the crontab file in a text editor, allowing you to add, edit, or remove cron jobs.

Each cron job in the crontab file consists of a schedule and a command. The schedule specifies when the cron job will be executed, using a specific format that consists of six fields: minute, hour, day of the month, month, day of the week, and the command to be executed.

For example, to execute the "myprogram" program every hour at the beginning of the hour, you could use the following cron job in the crontab file:

0 * * * * /path/to/myprogram

Once you have added the cron job to the crontab file, cron will automatically execute the program at the specified time or interval. You can use the crontab -l command to view the current crontab file, and the crontab -r command to remove all cron jobs from the crontab file.