Golang : Launching your executable inside a console under Linux

Problem: You want to launch your executable under a terminal window after clicking on an icon. Why you want to do that? Because not everyone knows how to navigate the terminal and use the command line interface. Your program end-user prefers to point-n-click to launch your program. So how to open a terminal first and execute your program inside the terminal?

Consider this program:

---

 package main

 import (
  "fmt"
  "os/exec"
 )

 func main() {
  exec.Command("xdg-open", "https://www.socketloop.com").Start()
  fmt.Println("Can you read this line??!")
 }

---

What it does when run inside a terminal, it will open the default browser and point to the given URL. Try launching this program by clicking on the executable icon, you will still get the browser opened and pointing to the given URL. Trouble is, you won't be able to see the output after exec.Command().

Solution: Wrap your executable inside a script file and use it to launch your application. The end-user will still be able the see the logging or what output your program send to the console. Once the user is done with your application, he/she can just close the terminal window.

First, create a script to launch your binary. For example, launchmyserver.sh:

---

 #!/bin/bash
 ./my-server-executable-file
 read -s -n1 -p "Press any key to exit..."

---

Next, make the script executable with

chmod +x launchmyserver.sh

Finally, click on launchmyserver.sh icon instead of the executable icon and select "Run In Terminal" option.

Hope this helps! Happy coding!

Reference:

https://gist.github.com/hyg/9c4afcd91fe24316cbf0