Go loop pointer changes [duplicate] - pointers

Question

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Closed 9 months ago.
I am using a for range loop in Go to iterate through a slice of structs.
In each loop, I a pointer to the current item to a variable.
I am confused why the pointer changes value in the next loop.
For example this code:
package main
import "fmt"
type t struct {
val int
}
func main() {
l := []t{{1}, {2}}
var p *t
for _, i := range l {
fmt.Println("begin", p)
p = &i
fmt.Println("end", p)
}
}
I would expect to produce:
begin <nil>
end &{1}
begin &{1}
end &{2}
But actually does:
begin <nil>
end &{1}
begin &{2}
end &{2}
For reference, in my actual code, I am checking for a condition during the loop, and returning the current item and previous one. So I am trying to save a pointer to it, so that in the next iteration it will have access to the previous as well.

Answer 1

The problem is that you're taking the address of the loop/range variable and not the address of the item in slice. However, you're just making a lot of unnecessary work for yourself. For one, why don't you use the i, v := range or better yet i, _ := and then you can do i-1 to get the previous item? Secondly, even if you want it saved in a pointer, still use this syntax and then assign p = &l[i] so you have the address of the item in the slice rather than the address of the loop/range variable.
People are way too eager to use for/each style constructs when it's obviously better to work with the index... If you want index-1 on every iteration, using the index should be your go to way of doing that.

Answer 2

Building off Tim's comment, it seems like you can copy the value on each loop, instead of the pointer, and dereference it after.
package main
import "fmt"
type t struct {
val int
}
func main() {
l := []t{{1}, {2}}
var p t
var i t
for _, i = range l {
fmt.Println("begin", &p)
p = i
fmt.Println("end", &p)
}
}

Answer 3

Another option is to get the pointer to the current item by using the index:
package main
import "fmt"
type t struct {
val int
}
func main() {
l := []t{{1}, {2}}
var p *t
for index, _ := range l {
fmt.Println("begin", p)
p = &l[index]
fmt.Println("end", p)
}
}