Getting Started with P4 API for Go from source code

These steps outline how to set up P4 API for Go on Linux x86_64. For steps on how to get P4 API for C/C++ and the source code for a different operating system, see the following topics:

Follow these steps to set up and run a simple program using P4 API for Go from source.

Install Go 1.24 or later. For more information on how to install Go, see Tutorial: Get started with Go.

Download P4 API for C/C++ by entering the following code into the terminal.

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cd /home/myuser/
wget http://ftp.perforce.com/perforce/r25.1/bin.linux26x86_64/p4api-glibc2.12-openssl3.tgz
tar -xvf p4api-glibc2.12-openssl3.tgz

Download the source code for P4 API for Go from Github by entering the following code into the terminal.

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wget https://github.com/perforce/p4go/archive/refs/tags/v2025.1.2780067.tar.gz
tar -xvf v2025.1.2780067.tar.gz

Using the terminal, create a test directory and create a sample Go code called main.go.

The example below uses Vi to create the sample Go code, but you can use any text editor you prefer.
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```
mkdir p4gotest
cd p4gotest
go mod init p4gotest
vi main.go
```

Enter the following code into main.go.

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package main

import "fmt"
import "p4"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("P4Go Test program")

    p4 := p4.New()
    defer p4.Close()

    // Set connection details
    p4.SetPort("perforce:1666")
    p4.SetUser("username")
    p4.SetPassword("password")

    // Connect to the P4 server
    connected, err := p4.Connect()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error connecting to server:", err)
        return
    }
    if connected {
        fmt.Println("Connected to P4 server.")
    }

    // Run p4 info
    results, err := p4.Run("info")
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error while running custom command:", err)
        return
    }
    for _, item := range results {
        fmt.Println("Result:", item)
    }

    // Disconnect
    disconnected, err := p4.Disconnect()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error disconnecting from server:", err)
    }
    if disconnected {
        fmt.Println("Disconnected from P4 server.")
    }
}

In the terminal, set up build flags with the following code.

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go env -w CGO_CPPFLAGS="-I /home/myuser/p4api-2025.1.2761706/include -g"
go env -w CGO_LDFLAGS="-L /home/myuser/p4api-2025.1.2761706/lib -lp4api -lssl -lcrypto"
go env

In the terminal, run the following code.
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```
go run
```