Writing to file from cmd output - go

Question

I am trying to write a small code in Go that will collect and save stats from IPFS.
So my Go code will execute IPFS command and save its output in .txt file and keep updating that .txt file.
I am having trouble doing that.
This is my code:
package main
import (
"fmt"
"io"
"log"
"os"
"os/exec"
"time"
)
func ipfsCommand() (ipfsOutput string) {
// output and error
out, err := exec.Command("ipfs","stats","bitswap","--human").Output()
// if there are errors, print/log them
if err != nil {
log.Printf("error!")
log.Fatal(err)
} else {
log.Printf("no error, printing output")
fmt.Printf("%s", out)
}
return
}
func writeToFile(message string) error {
f, err := os.Create("outputTest2_2.txt")
if err != nil {
return err
}
defer f.Close()
l, err := io.WriteString(f, message)
if err != nil {
fmt.Println(err)
f.Close()
return err
}
fmt.Println(l, "bytes written successfully")
return f.Sync()
}
func main() {
// get current time
currentTime := time.Now()
fmt.Println("YYYY.MM.DD : ", currentTime.Format("2006.01.02 15:04:05"))
writeToFile(currentTime)
// get output from ipfs command
msg := ipfsCommand()
// write the output to file
writeToFile(msg)
fmt.Println("file written!!!")
/* // write to file many times
for i:=0;i<3;i++{
// get output from ipfs command
msg := ipfsCommand()
// write the output to file
writeToFile(msg)
}*/
}
When the above code is run, this is the error:
# command-line-arguments
.\test2.go:49:13: cannot use currentTime (type time.Time) as type string in argument to writeToFile
Again, I want to get output from IPFS and save it to .txt file along with current time. I want to do this in loop because I want to save output from IPFS over a long period of time.

Answer 1

I tried to fix your script as is, but it just has too many issues. Here is a
rewrite, maybe you can use it as a new starting point:
package main
import (
"os"
"os/exec"
"time"
)
func main() {
f, err := os.Create("outputTest2_2.txt")
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer f.Close()
currentTime, err := time.Now().MarshalText()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
f.Write(append(currentTime, '\n'))
msg, err := exec.Command("go", "env").Output()
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
f.Write(msg)
}