Go is a systems programming language intended as an alternative to C++. These are some notes on Go for experienced C++ programmers. This document discusses the differences between Go and C++, and says little to nothing about the similarities.
For a more general introduction to Go, see the Go tutorial.
For a detailed description of the Go language, see the Go spec.
There is more documentation about go.
const or volatile qualifiers.
nil for invalid pointers, where C++ uses
NULL or simply 0.
The declaration syntax is reversed compared to C++. You write the name followed by the type. Unlike C++, the syntax for a type does not match the way in which the variable is used. Type declarations may be read easily from left to right.
Go C++
var v1 int; // int v1;
var v2 string; // approximately const std::string v2;
var v3 [10]int; // int v3[10];
var v4 []int; // approximately int* v4;
var v5 struct { f int }; // struct { int f; } v5;
var v6 *int; // int* v6; // but no pointer arithmetic
var v7 map[string]int; // approximately unordered_map<string, int>* v7;
var v8 func(a int) int; // int (*v8)(int a);
Declarations generally take the form of a keyword followed by the name
of the object being declared. The keyword is one of var,
func,
const, or type. Method declarations are a minor
exception in that
the receiver appears before the name of the object begin declared; see
the discussion of interfaces.
You can also use a keyword followed by a series of declarations in parentheses.
var (i int; m float)
When declaring a function, you must either provide a name for each parameter or not provide a name for any parameter; you can't omit some names and provide others. You may group several names with the same type:
func f (i, j, k int);
A variable may be initialized when it is declared. When this is done, specifying the type is permitted but not required. When the type is not specified, the type of the variable is the type of the initialization expression.
var v = *p;
See also the discussion of constants, below. If a variable is not initialized, the type must be specified. In that case it will be implicitly initialized to 0 (or nil, or whatever). There are no uninitialized variables in Go.
Within a function, a simple declaration syntax is available with
:= .
v1 := v2;
This is equivalent to
var v1 = v2;
Go permits multiple assignments which are done in parallel.
i, j = j, i; // Swap i and j.
Functions may have multiple return values, indicating by a list in parentheses.
func f() (i int, j int); v1, v2 = f();
Go treats semicolons as separators, not terminators. Moreover,
a semicolon
is not required after a curly brace ending a type declaration (e.g.,
var s struct {}) or a block. Semicolons are never required at the
top level of a file (between global declarations). However, they are
always permitted at
the end of a statement, so you can continue using them as in C++.
When using a pointer to a struct, you use . instead
of ->.
Thus syntactically speaking a structure and a pointer to a structure
are used in the same way.
type myStruct struct { i int }
var v9 myStruct; // v9 has structure type
var p9 *myStruct; // p9 is a pointer to a structure
f(v9.i, p9.i)
Go does not require parentheses around the condition of a if
statement, or the expressions of a for statement, or the value of a
switch statement. On the other hand, it does require curly braces
around the body of an if or for statement.
if a < b { f() } // Valid
if (a < b) { f() } // Valid
if (a < b) f(); // INVALID
Go does not have a while statement nor does it have a
do/while
statement. The for statement may be used with a single condition,
which makes it equivalent to a while statement. Omitting the
condition entirely is an endless loop.
Go permits break and continue to specify a label.
The label must
refer to a for, switch, or select
statement.
In a switch statement, case labels do not fall
through. You can
make them fall through using the fallthrough keyword. This applies
even to adjacent cases.
switch i { case 0: case 1: f() } // f is not called when i == 0!
But a case can have multiple values.
switch i { case 0, 1: f() } // f is called if i == 0 || i == 1.
The values in a case need not be constants—or even integers;
any type
that supports the equality comparison operator, such as strings or
pointers, can be used—and if the switch
value is omitted it defaults to true.
switch { case i < 0: f1() case i == 0: f2() case i > 0: f3() }
The ++ and -- operators may only be used in
statements, not in expressions.
You cannot write c = *p++. *p++ is parsed as
(*p)++.
The defer statement may be used to call a function after
the function containing the defer statement returns.
fd := open("filename");
defer close(fd); // fd will be closed when this function returns.
In Go constants may be untyped. This applies even to constants
named with a const declaration if no
type is given in the declaration and the initializer expression uses only
untyped constants.
An untyped constant becomes typed when it is used within a context that
requires a typed value. This permits constants to be used relatively
freely without requiring general implicit type conversion.
var a uint; f(a + 1) // untyped numeric constant "1" becomes typed as uint
The language does not impose any limits on the size of an untyped numeric constant or constant expression. A limit is only applied when a constant is used where a type is required.
const huge = 1 << 100; f(huge >> 98)
Go does not support enums. Instead, you can use the special name
iota in a single const declaration to get a
series of increasing
value. When an initialization expression is omitted for a const,
it reuses the preceding expression.
const ( red = iota; blue; green ) // red == 0, blue == 1, green == 2
A slice is conceptually a struct with three fields: a
pointer to an array, a length, and a capacity.
Slices support
the [] operator to access elements of the underlying array.
The builtin
len function returns the
length of the slice. The builtin cap function returns the
capacity.
Given an array, or another slice, a new slice is created via
a[I:J]. This
creates a new slice which refers to a, starts at
index I, and ends at index
J - 1. It has length J - I.
If a is itself a slice, the new slice refers to the same array
to which a
refers. That is, changes made using the new slice may be seen using
a. The
capacity of the new slice is simply the capacity of a minus
I. The capacity
of an array is the length of the array. You may also assign a pointer to an
array to a
variable of slice type; given var s []int; var a[10] int,
s = &a is more or
less the same as s = a[0:len(a)].
What this means is that Go uses slices for some cases where C++ uses pointers.
If you create a value of type [100]byte (an array of 100 bytes,
perhaps a
buffer) and you want to pass it to a function without copying it, you should
declare the function parameter to have type []byte, and pass the
address
of the array. Unlike C++, it is not
necessary to pass the length of the buffer; it is efficiently accessible via
len.
The slice syntax may also be used with a string. It returns a new string, whose value is a substring of the original string.
Go has a builtin function new which takes a type and
allocates space
on the heap. The allocated space will be zero-initialized for the type.
For example, new(int) returns a new object of type
*int,
allocated on the heap and initialized with the value 0.
Unlike C++, new is a function, not an operator;
new int is a syntax error.
Map and channel values must be allocated using the builtin function
make.
A variable declared with map or channel type without an initializer will be
automatically initialized to nil.
Calling make(map[int]int) returns a newly allocated value of
type map[int]int.
Note that make returns a value, not a pointer. This is
consistent with
the fact that map and channel values are passed by reference. Calling
make with
a map type takes an optional argument which is the expected capacity of the
map. Calling make with a channel type takes an optional
argument which is the
buffering capacity of the channel.
The make function may also be used to allocate a slice.
In this case it
allocates memory for the underlying array and returns a slice referring to it.
There is one required argument, which is the number of elements in the slice.
A second, optional, argument is the capacity of the slice. For example,
make([]int, 10, 20). This is identical to
new([20]int)[0:10]. Since
Go uses garbage collection, the newly allocated array will be discarded
sometime after there are no references to the returned slice.
Where C++ provides classes and templates, Go provides interfaces. A Go interface is similar to a C++ pure abstract class: a class with no data members, with methods which are all pure virtual. However, in Go, any type which provides the methods named in the interface may be treated as an implementation of the interface. No explicitly declared inheritance is required. The implementation of the interface is entirely separate from the interface itself.
A method looks like an ordinary function definition, except that it
has a receiver. The receiver is similar to
the this pointer in a C++ class method.
type myType struct { i int }
func (p *myType) get() int { return p.i }
This declares a method get associated with myType.
The receiver is named p in the body of the function.
Methods are defined on named types. If you convert the value to a different type, the new value will have the methods of the new type, not the old type.
You may define methods on a builtin type by declaring a new named type derived from it. The new type is distinct from the builtin type.
type myInteger int
func (p myInteger) get() int { return int(p) } // Conversion required.
func f(i int) { }
var v myInteger
// f(v) is invalid.
// f(int(v)) is valid; int(v) has no defined methods.
Given this interface:
type myInterface interface {
get() int;
set(i int);
}
we can make myType satisfy the interface by additionally writing
func (p *myType) set(i int) { p.i = i }
Now any function which takes myInterface as a parameter
will accept a
variable of type *myType.
func getAndSet(x myInterface);
func f1() {
var p myType;
getAndSet(&p);
}
In other words, if we view myInterface as a C++ pure abstract
base
class, defining set and get for
*myType made *myType automatically
inherit from myInterface. A type may satisfy multiple interfaces.
An anonymous field may be used to implement something much like a C++ child class.
type myChildType struct { myType; j int }
func (p *myChildType) get() int { p.j++; return (&p.myType).get() }
This effectively implements myChildType as a child of
myType.
func f2() {
var p myChildType;
getAndSet(&p)
}
The set method is effectively inherited from
myChildType, because
methods associated with the anonymous type are promoted to become methods
of the enclosing type. In this case, because myChildType has an
anonymous field of type myType, the methods of
myType also become methods of myChildType.
In this example, the get method was
overridden, and the set method was inherited.
This is not precisely the same as a child class in C++. When a parent method is called, it receives a pointer to the field in the child class. If the parent method calls some other method on its argument, it will call the method associated with the parent class, not the method associated with the child class. In other words, methods are not virtual functions. When you want the equivalent of a virtual function, use an interface.
A variable which has an interface type may be converted to have a
different interface type. This conversion is implemented dynamically
at runtime, like C++ dynamic_cast. Unlike
dynamic_cast, there does
not need to be any declared relationship between the two interfaces.
type myCompareInterface interface {
print();
}
func f3(x myInterface) {
x.(myCompareInterface).print()
}
The conversion to myCompareInterface is entirely dynamic.
It will
work as long as the underlying type of x (the dynamic type) defines
a print method.
Because the conversion is dynamic, it may be used to implement generic programming similar to templates in C++. This is done by manipulating values of the minimal interface.
type Any interface { }
Containers may be written in terms of Any, and the caller may cast
the values back to the desired type. As the typing is dynamic rather
than static, there is no equivalent of the way that a C++ template may
inline the relevant operations. The operations are fully type-checked
at runtime, but all operations will involve a function call.
type iterator interface {
get() Any;
set(v Any);
increment();
equal(arg *iterator) bool;
}
Go permits starting a new thread of execution (a goroutine)
using the go
statement. The go statement runs a function in a
different, newly created, goroutine.
All goroutines in a single program share the same address space.
Internally, goroutines act like coroutines that are multiplexed among multiple operating system threads. You do not have to worry about these details.
func server(i int) { for { print(i); sys.sleep(10) } }
go server(1); go server(2);
(Note that the for statement in the server
function is equivalent to a C++ while (true) loop).
Goroutines are (intended to be) cheap.
Function literals can be useful with the go statement.
var g int // global variable
go func(i int) {
s := 0
for j := 0; j < i; j++ { s += j }
g = s
} (1000) // Passes argument 1000 to the function literal.
Channels are used to communicate between goroutines. Any value may be
sent over a channel. Channels are (intended to be) efficient and
cheap. To send a value on a channel, use <- as a binary
operator. To
receive a value on a channel, use <- as a unary operator.
When calling
functions, channels are passed by reference.
The Go library provides mutexes, but you can also use a single goroutine with a shared channel. Here is an example of using a manager function to control access to a single value.
type cmd struct { get bool; val int }
func manager(ch chan cmd) {
var val int = 0;
for {
c := <- ch
if c.get { c.val = val; ch <- c }
else { val = c.val }
}
}
In that example the same channel is used for input and output. This means that if two goroutines try to retrieve the value at the same time, the first goroutine may read the response which was triggered by the second goroutine's request. In simple cases that is fine. For more complex cases, pass in a channel.
type cmd2 struct { get bool; val int; ch <- chan int; }
func manager2(ch chan cmd2) {
var val int = 0;
for {
c := <- ch
if c.get { c.ch <- val }
else { val = c.val }
}
}
To use manager2, given a channel to it:
func f4(ch <- chan cmd2) int {
myCh := make(chan int);
c := cmd2{ true, 0, myCh }; // Composite literal syntax.
ch <- c;
return <- myCh;
}