vendoff

Disable/enable a Go vendor folder, with this shell script.

Usage

init your repo

_Initialise your .gitignore file, by ignoring novendor.

vendoff.sh init

Switch off vendor folder

_Move vendor to novendor. Temporarily ignore changes (removal of 'vendor') in your repo, using 'skip-worktree'.

vendoff.sh off

Switch vendor folder back on.

_Move novendor back to vendor. Remove the 'skip-worktree' options from the vendor folder

vendoff.sh on

Why?

• Easily experiment with different versions of dependencies.
• You may want to try out a new/experimental version of a dependency - check that everything works, and then back out.
• For me this is part of my workflow. I commonly use a shared repo alongside a range of dependent projects. It is important to test changes locally.

Why now?

• GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT will be removed in Go1.7.
• I used to use this environment variable to acheive a similar thing - it's not available any longer!
• See golang/go#16562 for the issue I reported about this.

Caveats

• This works with git only.
• This is intended to be used with tools like godep, glide, govendor, etc. Obviously don't try running these tools while you have your dependencies in the _novendor folder.
• I don't think it works with git submodules, but it might. YMMV.
• Experimental, yada yada.