Go install fails with error: no install location for directory xxx outside GOPATH

Question

For any OS X users and future me, you also need to set GOBIN to avoid this confusing message on install and go get

mkdir bin 
export GOBIN=$GOPATH/bin

When you provide no arguments to go install, it defaults to attempting to install the package in the current directory. The error message is telling you that it cannot do that, because the current directory isn't part of your $GOPATH.

You can either:

• Define $GOPATH to your $HOME (export GOPATH=$HOME).
• Move your source to within the current $GOPATH (mv ~/src/go-statsd-client /User/me/gopath).

After either, going into the go-statsd-client directory and typing go install will work, and so will typing go install go-statsd-client from anywhere in the filesystem. The built binaries will go into $GOPATH/bin.

As an unrelated suggestion, you probably want to namespace your package with a domain name, to avoid name clashing (e.g. github.com/you/go-statsd-client, if that's where you hold your source code).

You are using go install on a directory outside the GOPATH folder. Set your GOBIN env variable, or move src folder inside GOPATH.

GOPATH/
     bin/
     src/
       go-statsd-client/

More info: GO BUILD Source code, line 296

You need to setup both GOPATH and GOBIN. Make sure you have done the following (please replace ~/go with your preferred GOPATH and subsequently change GOBIN). This is tested on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

export GOPATH=~/go 

mkdir ~/go/bin

export GOBIN=$GOPATH/bin

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