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SEARCH KEYWORD -- SLICE POINTER

  Understanding Slice Behavior in Go

In Go, understanding how slices behave when passed to functions is crucial for writing efficient and bug-free code. This behavior is often a source of confusion for many developers, especially those new to the language. In this article, we'll explore the difference between passing slices by value and by reference, and how it impacts the modification of slices within functions. Introduction In Go, slices are a fundamental data structure used to work with sequences of elements. They are essentiall...

   PASS BY REFERENCE,ARRAY,SLICE,PASS BY VALUE     2024-03-10 06:43:51

  The hidden risk of passing slice as function parameter

In Go's source code or other open source libraries, there are lots of cases where a slice pointer is passed to function instead of slice itself. This brings up a doubt why not passing slice directly as its internal is backed by an array pointer to point to underlying data? For example, in log package, the formatHeader function takes a parameter buf as type *[]byte instead of []byte. func (l *Logger) formatHeader(buf *[]byte, t time.Time, file string, line int) {} Let's understand the r...

   GOLANG,SLICE,SLICE POINTER     2020-12-13 06:11:14

  Empty slice vs nil slice in GoLang

In Go, there is a type called slice which is built on top of array. It's a very convenient type when we want to handle a group of data. This post will explain a subtle but tricky difference between empty slice and nil slice. A nil slice is a slice has a length and capacity of zero and has no underlying array. The zero value of slice is nil. If a slice is declared like below, it is a nil slice. package main import "fmt" func main() { var a []string fmt.Println(a == nil) } The output will be t...

   GOLANG,JSON,EMPTY SLICE,NIL SLICE     2018-10-18 09:25:21

  Will nil == nil be true in GoLang

There is some interview question may ask whether nil == nil be true in GoLang. Wil it be true. false or compilation error? To know the answer, some knowledge about nil in GoLang needs to be explained first. nil definition According to Go's official documentation, the definition of nil is // nil is a predeclared identifier representing the zero value for a // pointer, channel, func, interface, map, or slice type. var nil Type // Type must be a pointer, channel, func, interface, map, or slice type...

   GOLANG,NIL,NIL EXPLANATION     2021-08-08 02:54:15

  How to Understand and Use nil in Golang Correctly?

In Golang, nil is a predefined identifier that carries different meanings in various contexts, but typically represents "none", "empty" or "zero value". It can be assigned to variables of pointer, slice, map, channel, function, and interface types. Understanding the significance of nil is crucial for writing robust Go programs, as mishandling nil can lead to unexpected issues. nil in Pointers In Go, pointers are a fundamental type that stores the memory address of a variable. When a pointer is d...

   FUNCTION,SLICE,MAP,CHANNEL,GOLANG,NIL     2024-01-05 05:19:40

  The internals of slice in GoLang

There are 3 components of slice:a) Pointer: Points to the start position of slice in the underlying array;b) length (type is int): the number of the valid elements of the slice;b) capacity (type is int): the total number of slots of the slice. Check the following code: package main import ( "fmt" "unsafe" ) func main() { var s1 []int fmt.Println(unsafe.Sizeof(s1)) } The result is 24 on my 64-bit system (The pointer and int both occupy 8 bytes). In the next example, I will use gdb to poke t...

   GOLANG,SLICE     2019-06-30 02:55:22

  Understand unsafe in GoLang

Before going to understand unsafe package in GoLang, the first thing needs to talk about is the pointer in GoLang. If you have a background of C language, you must know what pointer means and its usage. With pointer, you are free to operate any data at memory level which means you have great power, but this means that you have great responsibility as well. That's why it might be considered unsafe in lots of cases. Take a look at a simple example of doubling an integer. package main import "fmt"...

   GOLANG,UNSAFE,ZERO-COPY     2020-03-14 23:18:00

  new() and make() in GoLang

GoLang is a modern, statically typed, compiled programming language designed for building scalable, concurrent, and efficient software. It provides various built-in functions and features that help developers write concise and efficient code. Among them are the new() and make() functions, which may appear similar at first glance but serve different purposes in GoLang and are crucial for memory allocation and data initialization. In this blog article, we will explore the differences between the n...

   NEW,MAKE,GOLANG     2023-11-18 13:43:25

  Some tricks and tips for using for range in GoLang

GoLang provides two major ways to loop through elements of array, slice and map. They are for and for range. Many people find that for range is very convenient when don't care about the index of the element. In this post, some tricks and tips would be talked about regarding for range. 1. Loop and get pointer of each element Assume there is a code snippet like below which is to get the pointer of each element in an array and create a new array with the corresponding pointer. arr := [2]int{1, 2} r...

   POINTER,FOR LOOP,GOLANG,FOR RANGE     2020-03-08 01:07:00

  C/C++ Pointer Declaration Syntax – It makes sense!

I never really liked the way pointers are declared in C/C++: int *a, *b, *c; // a, b and c are pointers to int The reason is that I am used to reading variable declarations as MyType myVar1, myVar2, myVar3; and I always read “int*” as the type “integer pointer”. I therefore wanted the following int* a, b, c; // a is a pointer to int, b and c are ints to mean that a, b and c all were of type int*, i.e. pointers to int. and I therefore found it slightly a...

   C,Pointer,Declaration,Attempt     2012-02-22 05:43:58

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