Golf examples
Updated on 2025-09-27. Always use the latest Golf version to run these examples.
- Golf is a different kind of programming language
Over the past 50 years, general-purpose programming languages became more complex due to the constant influx of new features (some of which are great, while others are a "feature creep"). Just look at any major programming language in its early days, versus the latest incarnations. From a distance, it may look like you switched from riding a bicycle to flying a passenger jet with a few hundred knobs, buttons and readout consoles. Arguably, the language structure covers many more usage patterns, yields additional power and safety has improved, but the complexity and the learning curve has increased too. While in the beginning there was lots of pitfalls due to the lack of features and safety, which would usually result in too many ways of doing the same thing, in the end there's a minefield due to an overcrowded feature-scape that's paralyzing to deal with and often not quite understood by anyone on the team. ...
- SQLite with Golf
This example will create a service that inserts key and value into SQLite table. It's tested from command line. ...
- How to build a Web Service API
This article will show a simple shopping web API with basic functions, such as adding customers, items and orders, as well as updating and deleting them. It's easy to write and easy to understand with Golf; that's the reason code doesn't have much in a way of comments - there's no need. ...
- How to write distributed applications
Distributed computing is two or more servers communicating for a common purpose. Typically, some tasks are divvied up between a number of computers, and they all work together to accomplish it. Note that "separate servers" may mean physically separate computers. It may also mean virtual servers such as Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or containers, that may share the same physical hardware, though they appear as separate computers on the network. ...
- Using Vim color schemes with Golf
Golf installation comes with a Vim module for highlighting Golf code. After installing Golf, run this to install the Vim module: ...
- 34000 requests per second on a modest laptop
Here's a video showing how to create and start an application server, and how to connect to it and make requests from a C client (or from any language that supports C API extension), you can watch a video here. ...
- Random numbers in Golf
Generating random numbers is important in a wide range of applications. For instance, session IDs often use random numbers; they are also used in generating passwords; another example is load balancing where (say instead of round-robin), the next available process to serve a request is chosen randomly; some applications (like gambling) depend on random qualities; any kind of simulation would heavily rely on random numbers; financial and polling applications use random samples to determine outcomes and policies. The list of possible uses is pretty long. ...
- Encryption: ciphers, digests, salt, IV and a hands-on guide
Encryption is a method of turning data into an unusable form that can be made useful only by means of decryption. The purpose is to make data available solely to those who can decrypt it (i.e. make it usable). Typically, data needs to be encrypted to make sure it cannot be obtained in case of unauthorized access. It is the last line of defense after an attacker has managed to break through authorization systems and access control. ...
- How to send email with Golf
This example shows how to send email with Golf. The web service you'll create here is very simple and it will display an HTML form to collect info needed to send email, such as "From" and "To" (the sender and the recipient emails), the Subject and of course the Message itself. Once user clicks Submit, email is sent. ...
- How to get the web page source code programmatically
Fetching a web resource (including web page source) is a one-liner in Golf. First, create a new application ("get-page" here): ...
- Web file manager in less than 100 lines of code
Uploading and download files in web browser is a common task in virtually any web application or service. This article shows how to do this with very little coding - in less than 100 lines of code. The database used is PostgreSQL, and the web server is Nginx. ...
- Web service Hello World
To access a Golf service on the web, you need to have a web server or load balancer (think Apache, Nginx, HAProxy etc.). ...
- Call web service from web service: stacking them up
A web service doesn't necessarily need to be called from "the web", meaning from the web browser or via API across the web. It can be called from another web service that's on a local network. ...
- How is memory organized in Golf
Golf is a memory-safe language. A string variable is the actual pointer to a string (whether it's a text or binary). This eliminates at least one extra memory read. Bytes before the string constitute the ID to a memory table entry as well as the length of a string, with additional info used by memory-safety mechanisms: ...
- Using Regex in Golf
Regex (or "REGular EXpressions") is a powerful way to search strings, as well as to replace parts of strings. It makes it easier to reliably do so, since regular expressions are usually short; at the same time there's a learning curve in becoming proficient. However, given that regex is ubiquitous, it is worth learning at least some of it, as it can come handy. ...
- Use C language API to talk to Golf Server
Golf application server can be accessed via C API. Most programming languages allow for C linkage, so this makes it easy to talk to Golf server from anywhere. The Client-API is very simple with just a few functions and a single data type. It's also MT-safe (i.e. safe for multi-threaded applications). ...
- What is web service
Web service is code that responds to a request and provides a reply over HTTP protocol. It doesn't need to work over the web, despite its name. You can run a web service locally on a server or on a local network. You can even run a web service from command line. In fact, that's an easy way to test them. ...
- Web framework for C programming language
Golf has an "extended" mode, which allows for C code to be used directly. Normally, this is not allowed, but if you use extended-mode statement in your .golf file, then you can call C code from it. ...
- Introduction to Golf
Golf is a new programming language and framework for developing web services and web applications. It is: ...
- Multi-tenant SaaS (Notes web application) in 200 lines of code
This is a complete SaaS example (Software-as-a-Service) using PostgreSQL as a database, and Golf as a web service engine; it includes user signup/login/logout with an email and password, separate user accounts and data, and a notes application. All in about 200 lines of code! Here's a video that shows it - two users sign up and create their own notes. ...
- How to create a Golf application
To create a Golf application, use "-k" option of gg utility: ...
- Cache server in 30 lines
This is a cache server that can add, delete and query key/value pairs, with their number limited only by available memory. ...
- Hello World in Golf
Create a directory for your Hello World application and then switch to it: ...
- Here's what installing Golf looks like
The installation script is "gginst.sh". It installs Golf in a location folder ".golf" (under home directory), so a base installation does not require sudo. However, some external components do. For instance, if you want to access a database you'll need a database access library, or to use regex expressions you'll need PCRE2 library etc. These are industry-standard tried-and-true Free Open Source libraries; using them helps with reliability and safety. These libraries are called "toolkit" libraries for obvious reasons. You don't have to install them immediately, but rather only when you need them. When you build an application that needs one of them, Golf will ask you to install it, along with the instructions on how to do it. ...
- First In First Out (FIFO) example
Golf has built-in FIFO list type. You can create a FIFO variable and then store key/value string pairs in it, which you can then read back in the order you put them in. You can also rewind the FIFO list and obtain the same key/value pairs over and over again if needed. ...
- More than one table in a database transaction in SQLite
Here you'll learn how to use a database transaction to insert/update into multiple tables; so that if any of those fail, the entire transaction is cancelled (rollbacked), and if they all succeed, the transaction is committed as a whole, atomically. ...
- How to debug Golf programs with gdb
Debugging information is always included regardless of how you make your application; what varies is the amount of debugging info included. You can compile your Golf application normally: ...
- Functions and parameters in Golf
In Golf, there are no "functions" or "methods" as you may be used to in other languages. Any encapsulation is a request handler - you can think of it as a simple function that executes to handle a request - it can an external request (i.e. from an outside caller such as web browser, web API, or from a command-line), or internal requests from another handler in your application. ...
- More than one table in a database transaction in PostgreSQL
Here you'll learn how to use a database transaction to insert/update into multiple tables; so that if any of those fail, the entire transaction is cancelled (rollbacked), and if they all succeed, the transaction is committed as a whole, atomically. ...
- Example of auto status checking with Golf
When talking about safety in programming, it is memory safety that usually takes the spotlight. However, here we'll touch on another common safety issue that typically causes application logic errors, meaning your program won't function correctly. It's about checking the status of any kind of statement that provides it. Not checking the status could mean that the result of a statement isn't correct, yet your program is proceeding as if it were. Of course, this is bound to cause problems, and this is true for any programming language. ...
- Cookies in Golf applications, plus HAProxy
Cookies are used in web development to remember the state of your application on a client device. This way, your end-user on this client device doesn't have to provide the same (presumably fairly constant) information all the time. A "client device" can be just a plain web browser, or it can be anything else, such as any internet connected device. ...
- Memory safety: what about performance?
Memory safety guards against software security risks and malfunctions by assuring data isn't written to or read from unintended areas of memory. Preventing leaks is a separate feature that's important for web services which are long-running processes - memory leaks usually lead to running out of memory and crashes. ...
- More than one table in a database transaction in MariaDB
Here you'll learn how to use a database transaction to insert/update into multiple tables; so that if any of those fail, the entire transaction is cancelled (rollbacked), and if they all succeed, the transaction is committed as a whole, atomically. ...
- Security of web services
The security of web services is a broad subject, but there are a few common topics that one should be well aware. They affect if your web application, or an API service, will be a success or not. ...
- What is an application server
Every Golf application is built as both an application server and a command-line program. You can use both, depending on what's the nature of your application. Some programs are meant to be used in scripts, or executed directly from command line. Others need to stay in memory and execute user requests as servers. The nice thing is that they both work the same, meaning you can run from command line anything that an application server does, and vice versa. This is also handy for testing; it makes writing tests for an application server much easier because you can run such tests in a plain bash script. ...
- Cache as a web service
This example shows Apache as the front-end (or "reverse proxy") for article-tree - it's assumed you've completed it first. Three steps to setting up Apache quickly: ...
- Hello World as a Service
Writing a service is the same as writing a command-line program in Golf. Both take the same input and produce the same output, so you can test with either one to begin with. ...
- Statements in Golf
Golf is a new programming language and framework for developing web services and web applications. The reason for Golf is to make software development easier and more reliable. ...
- Fast JSON parser with little coding
Golf's JSON parser produces an array of name/value pairs. A name is a path to value, for instance "country"."state"."name", and the value is simply the data associated with it, for instance "Idaho". You can control if the name contains array indexes or not, for instance if there are multiple States in the document, you might have names like "country"."state"[0]."name" with [..] designating an array element. ...
- Web services with MariaDB
Create a directory for your project, it'll be where this example takes place. Also create Golf application "stock": ...
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