How to execute a simple Windows command in Golang?

How to run a simple Windows command?

This command:

exec.Command("del", "c:\\aaa.txt")

.. outputs this message:

> del: executable file not found in %path%

What am I doing wrong?

I got the same error as you.
But dystroy is correct: You can't run del or any other command built into cmd because there is no del.exe file (or any other del-executable for that matter).

I got it to work with:

package main
    
import(
    "fmt"
  	"os/exec"
)
    
func main() {
    var c *exec.Cmd

    switch runtime.GOOS{
    case "windows":
        c = exec.Command("cmd", "/C", "del", "D:\\a.txt")

    default://Mac & Linux
        c = exec.Command("rm", "-f", "/d/a.txt")
    }

   	if err := c.Run(); err != nil {	
    	fmt.Println("Error: ", err)
    }
}

You need a Windows cmd to execute your dir command.

Try this :

cmd := exec.Command("cmd", "/C", "dir").Output()

(sorry, no Windows computer to check it right now)

Found another solution too. Create a batch file that contains the following: del c:\aaa.txt

Then call it like this:

exec.Command("c:\\del.bat").Run()

In case you need the output of cmd:

if c, err := exec.Command("cmd","/c","del","a.txt").CombinedOutput(); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	} else {
		fmt.Printf("%s\n", c)
	}

Ok let's see, according to the documentation, in windows, processes receive commands as a single line string and do some parsing of their own. Exec's Command function builds the command string by combining all arguments together using CommandLineToArgvW, that despite being the most common quoting algorithm doesn't work for every application. Applications like msiexec.exe and cmd.exe use an incompatible unquoting algorithm, hence the extra mile.
Heres a different example using powershell

package main

import (
        "os/exec"
        "fmt"
        "log"
        )
func main() {
     out, err := exec.Command("powershell","remove-item","aaa.txt").Output()
     if err != nil {
         log.Fatal(err)
     } else {
         fmt.Printf("%s",out)
     }

you can try use github.com/go-cmd/cmd module.
because golang can not use syscall by default.

example:

import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
	"github.com/go-cmd/cmd"
)

func main() {
	// Start a long-running process, capture stdout and stderr
	findCmd := cmd.NewCmd("find", "/", "--name", "needle")
	statusChan := findCmd.Start() // non-blocking

	ticker := time.NewTicker(2 * time.Second)

	// Print last line of stdout every 2s
	go func() {
		for range ticker.C {
			status := findCmd.Status()
			n := len(status.Stdout)
			fmt.Println(status.Stdout[n-1])
		}
	}()

	// Stop command after 1 hour
	go func() {
		<-time.After(1 * time.Hour)
		findCmd.Stop()
	}()

	// Check if command is done
	select {
	case finalStatus := <-statusChan:
		// done
	default:
		// no, still running
	}

	// Block waiting for command to exit, be stopped, or be killed
	finalStatus := <-statusChan
}

 c := exec.Command("cmd", "/C", "dir", "d:\\")
	c.Stdin = os.Stdin
	c.Stdout = os.Stdout
	c.Stderr = os.Stderr
	c.Run()