What Does 'Vendoring a Dependency' Mean in Go?

Exploring the Concept of "Vendoring" in Go

In the realm of Go dependency management, the term "vendor" is frequently employed as a verb, leaving many scratching their heads. To provide clarity, this article delves into the meaning of "vendoring a dependency" within this context.

What Does "Vendoring a Dependency" Entail?

Vendoring in Go is the practice of creating a local copy of third-party packages utilized by a project. These duplicates are often stored within the project itself and committed to the project repository. By doing so, developers ensure that the exact versions of dependencies are employed regardless of external factors, such as updates to the original package.

As an illustration, when we encounter the statement "Dependencies that your application vendors...", it implies that the application itself includes local clones of these dependencies, which it will utilize during compilation and execution.

Examples of Vendor Usage

• "Dependencies that are vendored with your application": This phrase indicates that the project's dependencies have been included as local copies within the project's source code.
• "godep will write the vendored code": This line suggests that a particular tool will generate the necessary copies of third-party packages and store them within the project.

Follow-up Questions

• Is this related to vendoring in Ruby? The article provides no information about Ruby vendoring, implying a lack of connection between the two contexts.
• Is this term fully defined in the Go 1.5 Vendor Experiment? While the question is not explicitly addressed, the reference to the experiment suggests that the concept of vendoring was prevalent during that phase of Go's development.

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