Revel requires itself and the user application to be installed into a GOPATH layout as prescribed by the go command line tool. (See “GOPATH Environment Variable” in the go command documentation)

Example layout

Here is the default layout of a Revel application called sample, within a typical Go installation.

gocode                  GOPATH root
  src                   GOPATH src directory
    revel               Revel source code
      ...
    sample              App root
      app               App sources
        controllers     App controllers
          init.go       Interceptor registration
        models          App domain models
        routes          Reverse routes (generated code)
        views           Templates
      tests             Test suites
      conf              Configuration files
        app.conf        Main configuration file
        routes          Routes definition
      messages          Message files
      public            Public assets
        css             CSS files
        js              Javascript files
        images          Image files

The app/ directory

The app directory contains the source code and templates for your application. - app/controllers - app/models - app/views

Revel requires: - All templates are under app/views - All controllers are under app/controllers

Beyond that, the application may organize its code however it wishes. Revel will watch all directories under app/ and rebuild the app when it notices any changes. Any dependencies outside of app/ will not be watched for changes – it is the developer’s responsibility to recompile when necessary.

Additionally, Revel will import any packages within app/ (or imported modules) that contain init() functions on startup, to ensure that all of the developer’s code is initialized.

The controllers/init.go file is a conventional location to register all of the interceptor hooks. The order of init() functions is undefined between source files from the same package, so collecting all of the interceptor definitions into the same file allows the developer to specify (and know) the order in which they are run. (It could also be used for other order-sensitive initialization in the future.)

The conf/ directory

The conf directory contains the application’s configuration files. There are two main configuration files:

• app.conf, the main configuration file for the application, which contains standard configuration parameters
• routes, the routes definition file.

The messages/ directory

The messages directory contains all localized message files.

The public/ directory

Resources stored in the public directory are static assets that are served directly by the Web server. Typically it is split into three standard sub-directories for images, CSS stylesheets and JavaScript files.

The names of these directories may be anything; the developer need only update the routes.