Differential Privacy in Go

This is the Go implementation of the differential privacy library. For general details and key definitions, see the top-level documentation. This document describes Go-specific aspects.

How to Use

Usage of the Go Differential Privacy library is demonstrated in the codelab.

Full documentation of the API is available as godoc.

Using with the “go” Command

For building the differential privacy library with the “go” command, you can run the following:

go build -mod=mod ./...

This will build all the packages. -mod=mod is necessary for installing all the dependencies automatically. Otherwise, you'll be asked to install each dependency manually.

Similarly, you can run all the tests with:

go test -mod=mod ./...

If you already built the code with go build, you can omit -mod=mod.

If you wish to run the codelab, you can do so by (from the root of the repository):

cd examples/go/main
go run -mod=mod . -scenario=CountVisitsPerHour -input_file=../data/day_data.csv -non_private_output_file=out1.csv -private_output_file=out2.csv

Change scenario and input_file to run other scenarios. Check out the README for more information.

Using with Bazel

In order to include the Go DP Library in your Bazel project, we recommend you use Gazelle:

1. Add the following dependencies to your WORKSPACE file (feel free to use the latest version of the dependencies by updating the version numbers in the URLs & sha256 checksums):

   load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/repo:http.bzl", "http_archive")
   
   http_archive(
      name = "io_bazel_rules_go",
      sha256 = "80a98277ad1311dacd837f9b16db62887702e9f1d1c4c9f796d0121a46c8e184",
      urls = [
         "https://mirror.bazel.build/github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go/releases/download/v0.46.0/rules_go-v0.46.0.zip",
         "https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go/releases/download/v0.46.0/rules_go-v0.46.0.zip",
      ],
   )
   
   http_archive(
      name = "bazel_gazelle",
      sha256 = "32938bda16e6700063035479063d9d24c60eda8d79fd4739563f50d331cb3209",
      urls = [
         "https://mirror.bazel.build/github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-gazelle/releases/download/v0.35.0/bazel-gazelle-v0.35.0.tar.gz",
         "https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-gazelle/releases/download/v0.35.0/bazel-gazelle-v0.35.0.tar.gz",
      ],
   )
   
   http_archive(
       name = "com_google_protobuf",
       sha256 = "4a7e87e4166c358c63342dddcde6312faee06ea9d5bb4e2fa87d3478076f6639",
       url = "https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/archive/refs/tags/v21.5.tar.gz",
       strip_prefix = "protobuf-21.5",
   )
   
   load("@io_bazel_rules_go//go:deps.bzl", "go_register_toolchains", "go_rules_dependencies")
   
   go_rules_dependencies()
   
   go_register_toolchains(version = "1.22.0")
   
   # Protobuf transitive dependencies.
   load("@com_google_protobuf//:protobuf_deps.bzl", "protobuf_deps")
   protobuf_deps()
   
   # Gazelle dependencies must be added last.
   load("@bazel_gazelle//:deps.bzl", "gazelle_dependencies")
   
   gazelle_dependencies()
   

2. Add the following code to your root BUILD or BUILD.bazel file:

   load("@bazel_gazelle//:def.bzl", "gazelle")
   # gazelle:prefix github.com/example/project
   gazelle(name = "gazelle")
   

3. Run bazel run //:gazelle -- update-repos -from_file=go.mod, which will add dependencies to your WORKSPACE file (you need a valid go.mod file with your dependencies, e.g. github.com/google/differential-privacy/go/v3).

4. Run bazel run //:gazelle -- -go_naming_convention_external=go_default_library to automatically generate or update your BUILD files and build targets. Alternatively, you can manually add @com_github_google_differential_privacy_go_v3 as a dependency to targets in your BUILD files.