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Native Go Plugins

A Go plugin is a Go main package with exported functions and variables that has been compiled using the -buildmode=plugin build flag to produce a shared object (.so) library file. The exported functions and variables, in the Go package can be looked up and be bound to at runtime using the plugin package.

Usage

A Go plugin is just a Go package. The only difference is how it is built. The plugin package is supposed to export functions/variables, which can be used by the main program. A go plugin package can be compiled using the following command:

go build -buildmode=plugin -o plug.so ./test.go

This command will generate an shared obejct library from test.go by the name of plug.so. All the exported function/variable can be accessed from the main program using the plugin package:

  1. Open the plugin file with plugin.Open()
  2. Lookup the exported symbol with plugin.Lookup(<Symbol name>)
  3. Assert that loaded symbol is of a desired type.
  4. Use the module

Pros

  1. Super Fast! Runs as fast as the native go code
  2. Easy to use.
  3. Uses interface type as boundary

Cons

  1. Only supported on Linux
  2. Plugin once loaded cannot be "unloaded". There is no plan to implement this in the future.
  3. Version dependency: All the packages used by the plugin and the host should have the same version. (Making the host and the plugin tightly coupled.)

Benchmarks

This section contains the benchmark of each of the methods of the UserManager interface that are called using the native go plugin.

Method Name Operations ns/op
GetUser() 16151228 69.20 ns/op
GetUserByClaim() 100000000 10.73 ns/op
GetUserGroups() 16016910 73.48 ns/op
FindUser() 1769547 677.9 ns/op 
$ ./run.sh
goos: linux
goarch: amd64
pkg: github.com/jimil749/reva-plugin-benchmark
cpu: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz
BenchmarkGoPlugin/GetUser-4     	        16151228	        69.20 ns/op
BenchmarkGoPlugin/GetUserByClaim-4         	100000000	        10.73 ns/op
BenchmarkGoPlugin/GetUserGroups-4          	16016910	        73.48 ns/op
BenchmarkGoPlugin/FindUser-4               	 1769547	       677.9 ns/op