How to check if all fields of a *struct are nil? - go

Question

I'm not quite sure how to address this question, please feel free to edit.
With the first code block below, I am able to check if a all fields of a struct are nil.
In reality however, the values injected in the struct, are received as args.Review (see second code block below).
In the second code block, how can I check if all fields from args.Review are nil?
Try it on Golang Playground
package main
import (
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
type review struct {
Stars *int32 `json:"stars" bson:"stars,omitempty" `
Commentary *string `json:"commentary" bson:"commentary,omitempty"`
}
func main() {
newReview := &review{
Stars: nil,
// Stars: func(i int32) *int32 { return &i }(5),
Commentary: nil,
// Commentary: func(i string) *string { return &i }("Great"),
}
if reflect.DeepEqual(review{}, *newReview) {
fmt.Println("Nothing")
} else {
fmt.Println("Hello")
}
}
Try the second code on Golang Playground
This code below gets two errors:
prog.go:32:14: type args is not an expression
prog.go:44:27: args.Review is not a type
package main
import (
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
type review struct {
Stars *int32 `json:"stars" bson:"stars,omitempty" `
Commentary *string `json:"commentary" bson:"commentary,omitempty"`
}
type reviewInput struct {
Stars *int32
Commentary *string
}
type args struct {
PostSlug string
Review *reviewInput
}
func main() {
f := &args {
PostSlug: "second-post",
Review: &reviewInput{
Stars: func(i int32) *int32 { return &i }(5),
Commentary: func(i string) *string { return &i }("Great"),
},
}
createReview(args)
}
func createReview(args *struct {
PostSlug string
Review *reviewInput
}) {
g := &review{
Stars: args.Review.Stars,
Commentary: args.Review.Commentary,
}
if reflect.DeepEqual(args.Review{}, nil) {
fmt.Println("Nothing")
} else {
fmt.Println("Something")
}
}

Answer 1

If you're dealing with a small number of fields you should use simple if statements to determine whether they are nil or not.
if args.Stars == nil && args.Commentary == nil {
// ...
}
If you're dealing with more fields than you would like to manually spell out in if statements you could use a simple helper function that takes a variadic number of interface{} arguments. Just keep in mind that there is this: Check for nil and nil interface in Go
func AllNil(vv ...interface{}) bool {
for _, v := range vv {
if v == nil {
continue
}
if rv := reflect.ValueOf(v); !rv.IsNil() {
return false
}
}
return true
}
if AllNil(args.Stars, args.Commentary, args.Foo, args.Bar, args.Baz) {
// ...
}
Or you can use the reflect package to do your bidding.
func NilFields(x interface{}) bool {
rv := reflect.ValueOf(args)
rv = rv.Elem()
for i := 0; i < rv.NumField(); i++ {
if f := rv.Field(i); f.IsValid() && !f.IsNil() {
return false
}
}
return true
}
if NilFields(args) {
// ...
}