I am a newcomer of go and recently I am following the instruction of A Tour of Go.
I am reading the chapter on Interface and I am really confused by the concept.
The code is as follows
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
testTypeAssertion()
}
func testTypeAssertion() string {
var i interface{}="hello"
fmt.Printf("type of i is %T",i)
return i
// return "hello"
}
In this case, it will cause error
# example
./prog.go:12:2: cannot use i (type interface {}) as type string in return argument: need type assertion
But if I comment return i and uncomment return "hello", it goes like this
type of i is string
So why exactly do we need a type assertion here?
What's the type of i exactly?
I believe this question is different from cannot use type interface {} as type person in assignment: need type assertion. Because in that question the poster is trying to assign an empty interface value to a variable that has a concrete self-defined type person. In my question, I am trying to figure out why an interface holding a concrete string value cannot be a return value of a function whose return value type is exactly string.
Thanks to mkopriva's answer in the comment section and bugstop's answer. I will accept that it's caused by the different usage of static type and dynamic type. By the way, Reality's answer is very interesting and really helped me to understand the whole concept!
Think of an interface as a little box that holds a type and a value. The box has methods that map to methods on the value in the box.
The statement fmt.Printf("type of i is %T",i) prints the type in the box, not the type of the box itself. Reflect package trickery is required to print the type of i. but that's outside the scope of this question.
The statement return i does not compile because interface{} is not a string. The box contains a string, but the box is not a string.
We can get the value out of the box using a type assertion: return i.(string). This statement panics if i does not contain a string.
it's an interface value i with a dynamic type string.
It may be useful to read about:
How to determine an interface{} value's "real" type?
Interfaces in Go
The variable i is of type interface{}, and its value is the string "hello". An interface is simply a method-set, and since interface{} has no methods specified, all types satisfy it. Because of this, the assignment i="hello" works.
However, you cannot return an interface{} where a string is required, because string is not the same type as an interface{}. You could have returned a string where an interface{} is required, because a string implements interface{}.
I'm finding the use of the blank identifier a little hard to understand. I've looked at effective go and understand most of the use cases they describe but then looking at a tutorial I came across this in a route handler function:
var person Person
_ = json.NewDecoder(req.Body).Decode(&person)
in the first line we create a new empty variable of type Person (a struct previously defined) and then I assume that
&person is passing the person var in by reference,
to be filled with data by the Decode function
this function then goes on to perform a few more tasks before encoding and returning a json response.
Why do we need have the decode assigned to a blank identifier? Couldn't we just run json.NewDecoder(req.Body).Decode(&person) ? if we can't, why not?
I'm assuming you're learning golang and asking because you can't identify why this example used this practice.
As #JimB mentioned in comments, the example writer didn't need to do this they're simply ignoring the Error return.
The blank identifier _ can be used to strictly provide the keys in a struct too. See this for reference
Without enforcing
type SomeStruct struct {
FirstField string
SecondField bool
}
myStruct := SomeStruct{"", false}
Enforcing to mention the key for the value (Removes the dependency of ordering the values)
type SomeSturct struct {
FirstField string
SecondField bool
_ struct{}
}
// COMPILATION ERROR
myStruct := SomeSturct{"", false}
The above will give the error too few values in SomeSturct literal
I'm following up on Golang Decoding Generic JSON Objects to One of Many Formats as a way to unmarshal generic json. I'm going to have a multitude of different types tho which can be added by others, so hardcoding case statements is not feasible.
I also don't want to hardcode the type as a string, but let the ones using the library chose the "lookup" name, in case they want to rename their underlying structs later.
I am basically looking for something like this:
type myInterface interface {
Something() // irrelevant, just to show you It's not about interface{}
}
type myBar struct {} // fulfils myInterface
type mySomething struct {} // fulfils myInterface
var types = make(map[string]type) // <--- Obvious Pseudo code ;)
types["foo:bar"] = myBar // done by whoever uses the library
types["1230988"] = mySomething // ...
type storageWrapper struct {
Type string
Data json.RawMessage
}
func loadSomething(id string) myInterface {
buf := db.load(id) // pseudo code but you get the idea
sw := &storageWrapper{}
json.Unmarshal(buf, sw)
// now the interesting part
targetType := types[sw.Type]
thing := &targetType{}
json.Unmarshal(sw.Data, thing)
return thing
}
I have this feeling that I'm overthinking the whole Problem. Or that I'm trying to bend Go into something that conflicts with its underlying philosophy. I'm very open and thankful for any advice that suggests a different approach to the whole Problem
Have types be a map[string]myInterface, and to register a type, have callers store an empty value of that type (not a reference) into the map. Then, to unmarshal, you can "get the type" by copying the empty value out of the map, unmarshaling into it, and returning it (or a reference to it). The interface value will do the job of identifying which type is wanted. Plus, if users want to default some fields to non-zero/empty values in case they're not provided in the JSON, they can actually do that by storing those values within the struct in the type map.
I'm new to interfaces and trying to do SOAP request by github
I don't understand the meaning of
Msg interface{}
in this code:
type Envelope struct {
Body `xml:"soap:"`
}
type Body struct {
Msg interface{}
}
I've observed the same syntax in
fmt.Println
but don't understand what's being achieved by
interface{}
Note: Go 1.18 (Q1 2022) does rename interface{} to any (alias for interface{}).
See issue 49884, CL 368254 and commit 2580d0e.
See the last part of this answer.
You can refer to the article "How to use interfaces in Go" (based on "Russ Cox’s description of interfaces"):
What is an interface?
An interface is two things:
it is a set of methods,
but it is also a type
The interface{} type (or any with Go 1.18+), the empty interface is the interface that has no methods.
Since there is no implements keyword, all types implement at least zero methods, and satisfying an interface is done automatically, all types satisfy the empty interface.
That means that if you write a function that takes an interface{} value as a parameter, you can supply that function with any value.
(That is what Msg represents in your question: any value)
func DoSomething(v interface{}) {
// ...
}
func DoSomething(v any) {
// ...
}
Here’s where it gets confusing:
inside of the DoSomething function, what is v's type?
Beginner gophers are led to believe that “v is of any type”, but that is wrong.
v is not of any type; it is of interface{} type.
When passing a value into the DoSomething function, the Go runtime will perform a type conversion (if necessary), and convert the value to an interface{} value.
All values have exactly one type at runtime, and v's one static type is interface{} (or any with Go 1.18+).
An interface value is constructed of two words of data:
one word is used to point to a method table for the value’s underlying type,
and the other word is used to point to the actual data being held by that value.
Addendum: This is were Russ's article is quite complete regarding an interface structure:
type Stringer interface {
String() string
}
Interface values are represented as a two-word pair giving a pointer to information about the type stored in the interface and a pointer to the associated data.
Assigning b to an interface value of type Stringer sets both words of the interface value.
The first word in the interface value points at what I call an interface table or itable (pronounced i-table; in the runtime sources, the C implementation name is Itab).
The itable begins with some metadata about the types involved and then becomes a list of function pointers.
Note that the itable corresponds to the interface type, not the dynamic type.
In terms of our example, the itable for Stringer holding type Binary lists the methods used to satisfy Stringer, which is just String: Binary's other methods (Get) make no appearance in the itable.
The second word in the interface value points at the actual data, in this case a copy of b.
The assignment var s Stringer = b makes a copy of b rather than point at b for the same reason that var c uint64 = b makes a copy: if b later changes, s and c are supposed to have the original value, not the new one.
Values stored in interfaces might be arbitrarily large, but only one word is dedicated to holding the value in the interface structure, so the assignment allocates a chunk of memory on the heap and records the pointer in the one-word slot.
Issue 33232 seems to point out to any as an alias to interface{} in Go 1.18 (Q1 2022)
Russ Cox explains:
'any' being only for constraints is a detail that will be in every writeup of generics - books, blog posts, and so on.
If we think we are likely to allow it eventually, it makes sense to allow it from the start and avoid invalidating all that written material.
'any' being only for constraints is an unexpected cut-out that reduces generality and orthogonality of concepts.
It's easy to say "let's just wait and see", but prescribing uses tends to create much more jagged features than full generality. We saw this with type aliases as well (and resisted almost all the proposed cut-outs, thankfully).
If 'any' is allowed in generics but not non-generic code, then it might encourage people to overuse generics simply because 'any' is nicer to write than 'interface{}', when the decision about generics or not should really be made by considering other factors.
If we allow 'any' for ordinary non-generic usage too, then seeing interface{} in code could serve as a kind of signal that the code predates generics and has not yet been reconsidered in the post-generics world.
Some code using interface{} should use generics. Other code should continue to use interfaces.
Rewriting it one way or another to remove the text 'interface{}' would give people a clear way to see what they'd updated and hadn't. (Of course, some code that might be better with generics must still use interface{} for backwards-compatibility reasons, but it can still be updated to confirm that the decision was considered and made.)
That thread also includes an explanation about interface{}:
It's not a special design, but a logical consequence of Go's type declaration syntax.
You can use anonymous interfaces with more than zero methods:
func f(a interface{Foo(); Bar()}) {
a.Foo()
a.Bar()
}
Analogous to how you can use anonymous structs anywhere a type is expected:
func f(a struct{Foo int; Bar string}) {
fmt.Println(a.Foo)
fmt.Println(a.Bar)
}
An empty interface just happens to match all types because all types have at least zero methods.
Removing interface{} would mean removing all interface functionality from the language if you want to stay consistent / don't want to introduce a special case.
interface{} means you can put value of any type, including your own custom type. All types in Go satisfy an empty interface (interface{} is an empty interface).
In your example, Msg field can have value of any type.
Example:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Body struct {
Msg interface{}
}
func main() {
b := Body{}
b.Msg = "5"
fmt.Printf("%#v %T \n", b.Msg, b.Msg) // Output: "5" string
b.Msg = 5
fmt.Printf("%#v %T", b.Msg, b.Msg) //Output: 5 int
}
Go Playground
There are already good answers here. Let me add my own too for others who want to understand it intuitively:
Interface
Here's an interface with one method:
type Runner interface {
Run()
}
So any type that has a Run() method satisfies the Runner interface:
type Program struct {
/* fields */
}
func (p Program) Run() {
/* running */
}
func (p Program) Stop() {
/* stopping */
}
Although the Program type has also a Stop method, it still satisfies the Runner interface because all that is needed is to have all of the methods of an interface to satisfy it.
So, it has a Run method and it satisfies the Runner interface.
Empty Interface
Here's a named empty interface without any methods:
type Empty interface {
/* it has no methods */
}
So any type satisfies this interface. Because, no method is needed to satisfy this interface. For example:
// Because, Empty interface has no methods, following types satisfy the Empty interface
var a Empty
a = 5
a = 6.5
a = "hello"
But, does the Program type above satisfy it? Yes:
a = Program{} // ok
interface{} is equal to the Empty interface above.
var b interface{}
// true: a == b
b = a
b = 9
b = "bye"
As you see, there's nothing mysterious about it but it's very easy to abuse. Stay away from it as much as you can.
https://play.golang.org/p/A-vwTddWJ7G
It's called the empty interface and is implemented by all types, which means you can put anything in the Msg field.
Example :
body := Body{3}
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", body) // -> main.Body{Msg:3}
body = Body{"anything"}
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", body) // -> main.Body{Msg:"anything"}
body = Body{body}
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", body) // -> main.Body{Msg:main.Body{Msg:"anything"}}
This is the logical extension of the fact that a type implements an interface as soon as it has all methods of the interface.
From the Golang Specifications:
An interface type specifies a method set called its interface. A
variable of interface type can store a value of any type with a method
set that is any superset of the interface. Such a type is said to
implement the interface. The value of an uninitialized variable of
interface type is nil.
A type implements any interface comprising any subset of its methods
and may therefore implement several distinct interfaces. For instance,
all types implement the empty interface:
interface{}
The concepts to graps are:
Everything has a Type. You can define a new type, let's call it T. Let's say now our Type T has 3 methods: A, B, C.
The set of methods specified for a type is called the "interface type". Let's call it in our example: T_interface. Is equal to T_interface = (A, B, C)
You can create an "interface type" by defining the signature of the methods. MyInterface = (A, )
When you specify a variable of type, "interface type", you can assign to it only types which have an interface that is a superset of your interface.
That means that all the methods contained in MyInterface have to be contained inside T_interface
You can deduce that all the "interface types" of all the types are a superset of the empty interface.
An example that extends the excellent answer by #VonC and the comment by #NickCraig-Wood. interface{} can point to anything and you need a cast/type assertion to use it.
package main
import (
. "fmt"
"strconv"
)
var c = cat("Fish")
var d = dog("Bone")
func main() {
var i interface{} = c
switch i.(type) {
case cat:
c.Eat() // Fish
}
i = d
switch i.(type) {
case dog:
d.Eat() // Bone
}
i = "4.3"
Printf("%T %v\n", i, i) // string 4.3
s, _ := i.(string) // type assertion
f, _ := strconv.ParseFloat(s, 64)
n := int(f) // type conversion
Printf("%T %v\n", n, n) // int 4
}
type cat string
type dog string
func (c cat) Eat() { Println(c) }
func (d dog) Eat() { Println(d) }
i is a variable of an empty interface with a value cat("Fish"). It is legal to create a method value from a value of interface type. See https://golang.org/ref/spec#Interface_types.
A type switch confirms i interface type is cat("Fish") . See https://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html#type_switch. i is then reassigned to dog("Bone"). A type switch confirms that i interface’s type has changed to dog("Bone") .
You can also ask the compiler to check that the type T implements the interface I by attempting an assignment: var _ I = T{}. See https://golang.org/doc/faq#guarantee_satisfies_interface and https://stackoverflow.com/a/60663003/12817546.
All types implement the empty interface interface{}. See https://talks.golang.org/2012/goforc.slide#44 and https://golang.org/ref/spec#Interface_types . In this example, i is reassigned, this time to a string "4.3".i is then assigned to a new string variable s with i.(string) before s is converted to a float64 type f using strconv. Finally f is converted to n an int type equal to 4. See What is the difference between type conversion and type assertion?
Go's built-in maps and slices, plus the ability to use the empty interface to construct containers (with explicit unboxing) mean in many cases it is possible to write code that does what generics would enable, if less smoothly. See https://golang.org/doc/faq#generics.
Interface is a type which is unknown at compile time
It is a contract between object and the struct type to satisfy with common functionality
or
common functionality acting on different types of struct objects
for example in the below code PrintDetails is a common functionality acting on different types of structs as Engineer,Manager,
Seniorhead
please find the example code
interface examplehttps://play.golang.org/p/QnAqEYGiiF7
A method can bind to any type(int, string, pointer, and so on) in GO
Interface is a way of declear what method one type should have, as long as A type has implement those methods, this can be assigned to this interface.
Interface{} just has no declear of method, so it can accept any type
I am trying to create a function that takes a []byte and an interface{} (standing for the struct) and returns an interface{} as the struct type passed into the func.
Something like this:
package main
import (
"encoding/json"
)
func UnmarshalFromJSONArray(sms []byte,tt string) (interface{}) {
var ts = new(tt)
err := json.Unmarshal(sms,&ts)
if(err != nil) {
fmt.Println(err)
}
return sms
}
So that method would run something like this:
// let's say a struct has the following definition:
type MyStructType struct {
Id int
Name string
Desc string
}
// we can some how get its fully qualified class name (this may require reflection?) or pass it into the UnMarshal method direction some how.
mst := "package.MyStructType",
// and then assume a byte array ba that has JSON format for
ba := []byte(`{"Id":"3","Name":"Jack","Desc":"the man"}`)
stct := UnmarshalFromJSONArray(ba,mst)
MyStructureType out := stct
// leaving "stct" being the unmarshalled byte array which can be used like any other struct of type "MyStructureType"
The key being that I never need to know what the fields of MyStructureType are before unmarshalling. All I need are the name of the struct and some way to instance one and then populate it with JSON byte array data that matches its fields. Hopefully that is possible (it is trivial in java using reflection). So I want to basically unmarshal an anonymous struct type by it's name without needing to know what fields it has.
Any suggestions?
The short answer is that this is impossible. There is no string to type translator in Go. You can make a map of strings to reflect.Type's, but you would need to know the possible options ahead of time or you need to provide the caller with a way to register types (perhaps in init).
Assuming you have found a way to resolve the string to its reflect.Type, you can simply call reflect.New(typ).Interface() to get the pointer you need to pass to json.Unmarshal().
The best answer is to avoid trying this all together. Writing idiomatic Java in Go isn't really possible. If I knew more about your problem, I could give you a more idiomatic Go solution.