Building Geek-life for Windows

This document explains how to build and run Geek-life on Windows systems.

Prerequisites

Go 1.14 or later installed on your system
PowerShell (comes with Windows)

Building the Application

Option 1: Using the Windows Build Script (Recommended)

Run the PowerShell build script to build for all Windows architectures:

.\build-windows.ps1

This will create optimized executables for:

Windows AMD64 (64-bit) - geek-life_windows-amd64.exe
Windows 386 (32-bit) - geek-life_windows-386.exe
Windows ARM64 - geek-life_windows-arm64.exe

Option 2: Manual Build

For a simple build without optimization:

go build -o builds/geek-life.exe ./app

For an optimized build (smaller file size):

$env:GOOS="windows"
$env:GOARCH="amd64"
go build -ldflags="-s -w" -o builds/geek-life_windows-amd64.exe ./app

Running the Application

After building, you can run the application:

# For the optimized AMD64 version (recommended for most users)
.\builds\geek-life_windows-amd64.exe

# For 32-bit systems
.\builds\geek-life_windows-386.exe

# For ARM64 systems
.\builds\geek-life_windows-arm64.exe

Command Line Options

.\builds\geek-life_windows-amd64.exe --help

Available options:

-d, --db-file string: Specify DB file path manually

File Structure

The main entry point is located in app/cli.go (not in a traditional main.go file at the root).

Build Optimization

The build script uses the following optimization flags:

-ldflags="-s -w": Strips debug information and symbol table to reduce file size
Results in approximately 30% smaller executable files

Troubleshooting

"go: command not found": Make sure Go is installed and added to your PATH
Permission denied: Run PowerShell as Administrator if needed
Execution policy: If you can't run the build script, run: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

Cross-compilation from Other Platforms

You can also build Windows executables from Linux/macOS:

# From Linux/macOS
env GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 go build -ldflags="-s -w" -o builds/geek-life_windows-amd64.exe ./app
env GOOS=windows GOARCH=386 go build -ldflags="-s -w" -o builds/geek-life_windows-386.exe ./app

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