In my code I have :
fmt.Printf("event.Comm type: %T\n", event.Comm)
fmt.Printf("&event.Comm type: %T\n", &event.Comm)
Which prints:
event.Comm type: [128]uint8
&event.Comm type: *[128]uint8
event.Comm type: [256]uint8
&event.Comm type: *[256]uint8
and so on.
I would like to define a function where I can pass their pointers, and get some work done.
so I defined:
func aux(x *[]byte){
fmt.Println("Aux got", x)
}
hoping that I'd send aux(&event.Comm) and aux(&trigger.Comm) et al.
Except that it refused to build:
cannot use &event.Comm (type *[128]byte) as type *[]byte in argument to aux
What's the idiomatic way to define a function signature with *[n]uint8 as its arguments?
The idiomatic approach is to use a slice:
func aux(x []byte){
fmt.Println("Aux got", x)
}
Use the slice expression [:] to create a slice backed by the array:
aux(event.Comm[:])
Note that arrays and slices are different types and are not assignable to each other. Arrays have a fixed size. A slice describes a section of an array. A slice header contains a pointer to the backing array, the length of the slice and the capacity of the backing array.
[128]byte is an array type. []byte is a slice type. They aren't the same type and there's no implicit conversion from one to the other. Your sample code doesn't make it clear what aux is actually supposed to do, but at a guess you should change aux to accept a []byte (pointers to slices are hardly ever necessary), and call it like aux(event.Comm[:]). [:] is a slice expression which creates a slice with a view of the whole array.
The type of the event is fixed sized array of [128]byte but in the argument of the aux you are passing the slice. The error was explaining the issue pretty well. In order to solve the error you need to define the size of the slice so your code should be like this.
package main
import "fmt"
func aux(x *[128]byte) {
fmt.Println("Aux got", x)
}
func main() {
var Comm [128]uint8
aux(&Comm)
}
or you can convert the array type to slice as hobbs explained in his answer.
Related
I have created a Slice Struct.
But why can't I append or output values?
package main
import "fmt"
type Slicestruct []struct {
num []int
emptynum []int
}
func main() {
slicestruct := &Slicestruct{
{[]int{1, 2, 3}, []int{}},
{[]int{4, 5, 6}, []int{}},
}
// is working:
fmt.Println(slicestruct)
// isn't working:
fmt.Println(slicestruct[0].num[0])
// isn't working:
slicestruct[0].emptynum = append(slicestruct[0].emptynum, 99)
}
The error message is: "invalid operation: slicestruct[0] (type *Slicestruct does not support indexing)"
You need to dereference the pointer before getting an element
(*slicestruct)[0]
Since it's the actual slice you're accessing an element from, not the pointer.
For pointers to arrays (not slices as you have here), this step would be done automatically.
Here's a related question about pointers to slices and arrays: Pointer to slice and array
Alternatively, you can remove the & when declaring your variable to make it not a pointer type. In the short sample we've seen here, there's nothing to necessitate a pointer. In general, legitimate uses of pointers to slices types are rare.
Not able to figure out how to convert interface{} returned from function into an array of structs
As part of some practise i was trying to create a function which can take 2 slices of some type and concatenates both and returns the slice.
The code can be found here - https://play.golang.org/p/P9pfrf_qTS1
type mystruct struct {
name string
value string
}
func appendarr(array1 interface{}, array2 interface{}) interface{} {
p := reflect.ValueOf(array1)
q := reflect.ValueOf(array2)
r := reflect.AppendSlice(p, q)
return reflect.ValueOf(r).Interface()
}
func main() {
fmt.Println("=======")
array1 := []mystruct{
mystruct{"a1n1", "a1v1"},
mystruct{"a1n2", "a1v2"},
}
array2 := []mystruct{
mystruct{"a2n1", "a2v1"},
mystruct{"a2n2", "a2v2"},
}
arrayOp := appendarr(array1, array2)
fmt.Printf("arr: %#v\n", arrayOp) // this shows all the elements from array1 and 2
val := reflect.ValueOf(arrayOp)
fmt.Println(val) // output is <[]main.mystruct Value>
fmt.Println(val.Interface().([]mystruct)) // exception - interface {} is reflect.Value, not []main.mystruct
}
I may have slices of different types of structs. I want to concatenate them and access the elements individually.
If there is any other way of achieving the same, please do let me know.
reflect.Append() returns a value of type reflect.Value, so you don't have to (you shouldn't) pass that to reflect.ValueOf().
So simply change the return statement to:
return r.Interface()
With this it works and outputs (try it on the Go Playground):
=======
arr: []main.mystruct{main.mystruct{name:"a1n1", value:"a1v1"}, main.mystruct{name:"a1n2", value:"a1v2"}, main.mystruct{name:"a2n1", value:"a2v1"}, main.mystruct{name:"a2n2", value:"a2v2"}}
[{a1n1 a1v1} {a1n2 a1v2} {a2n1 a2v1} {a2n2 a2v2}]
[{a1n1 a1v1} {a1n2 a1v2} {a2n1 a2v1} {a2n2 a2v2}]
You also don't need to do any reflection-kungfu on the result: it's your slice wrapped in interface{}. Wrapping it in reflect.Value and calling Value.Interface() on it is just a redundant cycle. You may simply do:
arrayOp.([]mystruct)
On a side note: you shouldn't create a "generic" append() function that uses reflection under the hood, as this functionality is available as a built-in function append(). The builtin function is generic, it gets help from the compiler so it provides the generic nature at compile-time. Whatever you come up with using reflection will be slower.
The slices are references to the underlying array. This makes sense and seems to work on builtin/primitive types but why is not working on structs? I assume that even if I update a struct field the reference/address is still the same.
package main
import "fmt"
type My struct {
Name string
}
func main() {
x := []int{1}
update2(x)
fmt.Println(x[0])
update(x)
fmt.Println(x[0])
my := My{Name: ""}
update3([]My{my})
// Why my[0].Name is not "many" ?
fmt.Println(my)
}
func update(x []int) {
x[0] = 999
return
}
func update2(x []int) {
x[0] = 1000
return
}
func update3(x []My) {
x[0].Name = "many"
return
}
To clarify: I'm aware that I could use pointers for both cases. I'm only intrigued why the struct is not updated (unlike the int).
What you do when calling update3 is you pass a new array, containing copies of the value, and you immediately discard the array. This is different from what you do with the primitive, as you keep the array.
There are two approaches here.
1) use an array of pointers instead of an array of values:
You could define update3 like this:
func update3(x []*My) {
x[0].Name = "many"
return
}
and call it using
update3([]*My{&my})
2) write in the array (in the same way you deal with the primitive)
arr := make([]My,1)
arr[0] = My{Name: ""}
update3(arr)
From the GO FAQ:
As in all languages in the C family, everything in Go is passed by
value. That is, a function always gets a copy of the thing being
passed, as if there were an assignment statement assigning the value
to the parameter. For instance, passing an int value to a function
makes a copy of the int, and passing a pointer value makes a copy of
the pointer, but not the data it points to. (See the next section for
a discussion of how this affects method receivers.)
Map and slice values behave like pointers: they are descriptors that
contain pointers to the underlying map or slice data. Copying a map or
slice value doesn't copy the data it points to.
Thus when you pass my you are passing a copy of your struct and the calling code won't see any changes made to that copy.
To have the function change the data in teh struct you have to pass a pointer to the struct.
Your third test is not the same as the first two. Look at this (Playground). In this case, you do not need to use pointers as you are not modifying the slice itself. You are modifying an element of the underlying array. If you wanted to modify the slice, by for instance, appending a new element, you would need to use a pointer to pass the slice by reference. Notice that I changed the prints to display the type as well as the value.
I'm quite new to Go, so this might be obvious. The compiler does not allow the following code:
(http://play.golang.org/p/3sTLguUG3l)
package main
import "fmt"
type Card string
type Hand []Card
func NewHand(cards []Card) Hand {
hand := Hand(cards)
return hand
}
func main() {
value := []string{"a", "b", "c"}
firstHand := NewHand(value)
fmt.Println(firstHand)
}
The error is:
/tmp/sandbox089372356/main.go:15: cannot use value (type []string) as type []Card in argument to NewHand
From the specs, it looks like []string is not the same underlying type as []Card, so the type conversion cannot occur.
Is it, indeed, the case, or did I miss something?
If it is the case, why is it so? Assuming, in a non-pet-example program, I have as input a slice of string, is there any way to "cast" it into a slice of Card, or do I have to create a new structure and copy the data into it? (Which I'd like to avoid since the functions I'll need to call will modify the slice content).
There is no technical reason why conversion between slices whose elements have identical underlying types (such as []string and []Card) is forbidden. It was a specification decision to help avoid accidental conversions between unrelated types that by chance have the same structure.
The safe solution is to copy the slice. However, it is possible to convert directly (without copying) using the unsafe package:
value := []string{"a", "b", "c"}
// convert &value (type *[]string) to *[]Card via unsafe.Pointer, then deref
cards := *(*[]Card)(unsafe.Pointer(&value))
firstHand := NewHand(cards)
https://play.golang.org/p/tto57DERjYa
Obligatory warning from the package documentation:
unsafe.Pointer allows a program to defeat the type system and read and write arbitrary memory. It should be used with extreme care.
There was a discussion on the mailing list about conversions and underlying types in 2011, and a proposal to allow conversion between recursively equivalent types in 2016 which was declined "until there is a more compelling reason".
The underlying type of Card might be the same as the underlying type of string (which is itself: string), but the underlying type of []Card is not the same as the underlying type of []string (and therefore the same applies to Hand).
You cannot convert a slice of T1 to a slice of T2, it's not a matter of what underlying types they have, if T1 is not identical to T2, you just can't. Why? Because slices of different element types may have different memory layout (different size in memory). For example the elements of type []byte occupy 1 byte each. The elements of []int32 occupy 4 bytes each. Obviously you can't just convert one to the other even if all values are in the range 0..255.
But back to the roots: if you need a slice of Cards, why do you create a slice of strings in the first place? You created the type Card because it is not a string (or at least not just a string). If so and you require []Card, then create []Card in the first place and all your problems go away:
value := []Card{"a", "b", "c"}
firstHand := NewHand(value)
fmt.Println(firstHand)
Note that you are still able to initialize the slice of Card with untyped constant string literals because it can be used to initialize any type whose underlying type is string. If you want to involve typed string constants or non-constant expressions of type string, you need explicit conversion, like in the example below:
s := "ddd"
value := []Card{"a", "b", "c", Card(s)}
If you have a []string, you need to manually build a []Card from it. There is no "easier" way. You can create a helper toCards() function so you can use it everywhere you need it.
func toCards(s []string) []Card {
c := make([]Card, len(s))
for i, v := range s {
c[i] = Card(v)
}
return c
}
Some links for background and reasoning:
Go Language Specification: Conversions
why []string can not be converted to []interface{} in golang
Cannot convert []string to []interface {}
What about memory layout means that []T cannot be converted to []interface in Go?
From the specs, it looks like []string is not the same underlying type as []Card, so the type conversion cannot occur.
Exactly right. You have to convert it by looping and copying over each element, converting the type from string to Card on the way.
If it is the case, why is it so? Assuming, in a non-pet-example program, I have as input a slice of string, is there any way to "cast" it into a slice of Card, or do I have to create a new structure and copy the data into it? (Which I'd like to avoid since the functions I'll need to call will modify the slice content).
Because conversions are always explicit and the designers felt that when a conversion implicitly involves a copy it should be made explicit as well.
I'm writing a test that a JSON list is empty.
{"matches": []}
The object has type map[string]interface{}, and I want to test that the list is empty.
var matches := response["matches"]
if len(matches) != 0 {
t.Errorf("Non-empty match list!")
}
However I'm told at compile time that this is invalid
invalid argument matches (type interface {}) for len
If I try casting to a list type:
matches := response["matches"].([]string)
I get a panic:
panic: interface conversion: interface is []interface {}, not []string [recovered]
What do I want to write here?
JSON parsing with maps in Go uses interfaces everywhere. Imagine you have the following JSON object:
{
"stuff" : [
"stuff1",
"stuff2",
"stuff3",
]
}
The Go JSON library will parse the outer object as a map from keys to values, as you've seen in your code. It maps variable names as keys to the values that correspond to those variable names. However, since it has no way of knowing ahead of time what those values are, the value type of the map is simply interface{}. So let's say you know there's a key called "stuff", and you know that its value is an array. You could do:
arr := myMap["stuff"]
And you know that it's an array type, so you can actually instead do:
arr := myMap["stuff"].([]interface{})
the problem here is that while you're right that it's an array, and the JSON library knows this, it has no way of knowing that every element will be of type string, so there's no way for it to decide that the array type should actually be []string. Imagine if you had done this instead:
{
"stuff" : [
"stuff1",
"stuff2",
3
]
}
Well "stuff" can't now be an array of strings because one of the elements isn't a string. In fact, it can't be an array of anything - there's no single type that would satisfy the types of all of the elements. So that's why the Go JSON library has no choice but to leave it as []interface{}. Luckily, since all you want is the length, you're already done. You can just do:
arr := myMap["stuff"].([]interface{})
l := len(arr)
Now that's all fine and good, but let's say that down the road you want to actually look at one of the elements. You could now take out an element and, knowing that it's a string, do:
arr := myMap["stuff"].([]interface{})
iv := arr[0] // interface value
sv := iv.(string) // string value
NOTE
When I say "array," I mean array in the JSON sense - these are JSON arrays. The data structure that represents them in Go is called a "slice" (Go has arrays too, but they're a separate thing - if you're used to arrays in languages like C or Java, Go slices are the closest analogue).
When dealing with JSON, you can add type declarations for array and object, then add methods as needed to help with conversion:
package main
import "encoding/json"
type (
array []interface{}
object map[string]interface{}
)
func (o object) a(s string) array {
return o[s].([]interface{})
}
func main() {
data := []byte(`{"matches": []}`)
var response object
json.Unmarshal(data, &response)
matches := response.a("matches")
mLen := len(matches)
println(mLen == 0)
}
https://golang.org/ref/spec#Type_declarations