Why can't I import pkg "builtin"?
built-in, go
Solution
When you import a package, the compiler (or at least, the gc compiler), searches for the already compiled package.
You can see this code in the source: http://golang.org/src/cmd/gc/lex.c?#L578
In particular, it doesn't search for .go files: these are assumed to be already built. This is a big win for go compared to, for example, C++, because each package can be compiled once, and code that depends on it can use the already-compiled version.
So why doesn't "builtin" ever get built, even though it's there as a package? Well, it's special-cased to be ignored in the part of the code that builds dependencies before building a source file: http://golang.org/src/cmd/go/build.go?#L558
Problem
`cat test.go` ``` package main import "builtin" func main() { return } ``` `go run test.go` ``` can't find import: "builtin" ``` I'm just curious because the file exists and is properly packaged. But can't be imported like other packages. `/usr/local/go/src/pkg/builtin/builtin.go`