Setting ulimit -n from a Golang program

Q: How can I set ulimit -n from a Golang program to restrict it within the program rather than globally?

A:
To set ulimit -n from a Golang program, you can use the following steps:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "syscall"
)

func main() {
    var rLimit syscall.Rlimit
    err := syscall.Getrlimit(syscall.RLIMIT_NOFILE, &rLimit)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error Getting Rlimit ", err)
    }
    fmt.Println(rLimit)
    rLimit.Max = 999999
    rLimit.Cur = 999999
    err = syscall.Setrlimit(syscall.RLIMIT_NOFILE, &rLimit)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error Setting Rlimit ", err)
    }
    err = syscall.Getrlimit(syscall.RLIMIT_NOFILE, &rLimit)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error Getting Rlimit ", err)
    }
    fmt.Println("Rlimit Final", rLimit)
}

Note: You may get an "invalid argument" error when setting the value. This is because you need to run the program with elevated privileges.

$ uname -a
Linux peterSO 3.8.0-26-generic #38-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jun 17 21:46:08 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
$ go version
go version devel  ba52f6399462 Thu Jul 25 09:56:06 2013 -0400 linux/386
$ ulimit -Sn
1024
$ ulimit -Hn
4096
$ go build rlimit.go
$ ./rlimit
{1024 4096}
Error Setting Rlimit  operation not permitted
Rlimit Final {1024 4096}
$ sudo ./rlimit
[sudo] password for peterSO:
{1024 4096}
Rlimit Final {999999 999999}
$