<p>
Go programs are constructed by linking together <i>packages</i>.
A package in turn is constructed from one or more source files
that together declare constants, types, variables and functions
belonging to the package and which are accessible in all files
of the same package. Those elements may be
<a href="#Exported_identifiers">exported</a> and used in another package.
</p>

## For developers

Release notes should be added to `next` by editing existing files or creating
new files. **Do not add RELNOTE=yes comments in CLs.** Instead, add a file to
the CL (or ask the author to do so).

At the end of the development cycle, the files will be merged by being
concatenated in sorted order by pathname. Files in the directory matching the
glob "*stdlib/*minor" are treated specially. They should be in subdirectories

</p>

<p>
The declaration order of variables declared in multiple files is determined
by the order in which the files are presented to the compiler: Variables
declared in the first file are declared before any of the variables declared
in the second file, and so on.
To ensure reproducible initialization behavior, build systems are encouraged
to present multiple files belonging to the same package in lexical file name
order to a compiler.

On Windows, the mode bits reported by [Lstat] and [Stat] for
reparse points changed. Mount points no longer have [ModeSymlink] set,
and reparse points that are not symlinks, Unix sockets, or dedup files
now always have [ModeIrregular] set.
This behavior is controlled by the `winsymlink` setting.
For Go 1.23, it defaults to `winsymlink=1`.

Go 1.20 removed the preinstalled `.a` files for the standard library
from the Go distribution.
Installations now build and cache the standard library like
packages in other modules.
The [`installgoroot` setting](/cmd/go#hdr-Compile_and_install_packages_and_dependencies)
restores the installation and use of preinstalled `.a` files.

There is no plan to remove any of these settings.

### Go 1.19

The [Stat] function now sets the [ModeSocket] bit for
files that are Unix sockets on Windows. These files are identified

	filenames := append(append([]string{}, info.GoFiles...), info.CgoFiles...)

	// Parse package files.
	var files []*ast.File
	for _, file := range filenames {
		f, err := w.parseFile(dir, file)
		if err != nil {
			log.Fatalf("error parsing package %s: %s", name, err)
		}
		files = append(files, f)
	}

	// Type-check package files.
	var sizes types.Sizes
	if w.context != nil {

func (w *Writer) RegisterCompressor(method uint16, comp Compressor) {
	if w.compressors == nil {
		w.compressors = make(map[uint16]Compressor)
	}
	w.compressors[method] = comp
}

// AddFS adds the files from fs.FS to the archive.
// It walks the directory tree starting at the root of the filesystem
// adding each file to the zip using deflate while maintaining the directory structure.
func (w *Writer) AddFS(fsys fs.FS) error {