I am implementing an application layer network protocol which uses JSON in Go.
func ReadMessage(conn net.Conn, returnMessage interface{}) bool {
messageBytes := // read from conn
error := json.Unmarshal(messageBytes, &returnMessage)
if error != nil {
return false
}
return true
}
The function takes a struct as its second parameter where the message is unmarshalled. The function can be called like this:
msg := MessageType1{}
ok := ReadMessage(conn, &msg)
Or without the ampersand (&)
msg := MessageType1{}
ok := ReadMessage(conn, msg)
which will compile, but not do what is should as the struct is passed as a copy, not as a reference and the original msg will remain empty. So I'd like to force passing the struct by reference and catch this error at compile time.
Changing the parameter type to *interface{} will not compile:
cannot use &msg (type *MessageType1) as type *interface {} in function argument:
*interface {} is pointer to interface, not interface
Is there some Go style way of doing this correctly?
There is not a way to do this in the function declaration.
You can use reflection though and panic at runtime when the argument is not a pointer.
However maybe you should consider changing the design of your code. The concrete type of the argument should not matter. It either implements the interface you need or not.
Demo: http://play.golang.org/p/7Dw0EkFzbx
Since Go 1.18 you can do this using generics:
func test[T any](dst *T) {
//Do something with dst
}
You can't enforce this as *T always has the method set of T. Thus both implement the interface.
From the spec:
The method set of any other type T consists of all methods with receiver type T. The method set of the corresponding pointer type *T is the set of all methods with receiver *T or T (that is, it also contains the method set of T).
What you can do instead is to use the language's ability to return multiple values in your function, as Volker already stated:
func ReadMessage(conn net.Conn) (interface{}, bool) {
var returnMessage interface{}
messageBytes := // read from conn
error := json.Unmarshal(messageBytes, &returnMessage)
if error != nil {
return nil, false
}
return returnMessage, true
}
You should also consider not returning type interface{} but some meaningful type.
Related
I have a bunch of flags parsed, and I'm then trying to assign those values to fields in a struct, but I'm struggling to get a parsed flag value set into the struct because I can't type assert it or cast it.
Here is a snippet of the code I have. It's not important to worry too much about the IterFields function, basically the third argument is called for each field in the struct...
Note: there are comments in the code below which highlight the error(s).
flag.Parse()
IterFields(st, v, func(field reflect.Value, sf reflect.StructField) {
flag.VisitAll(func(f *flag.Flag) {
if f.Name == strings.ToLower(sf.Name) || f.Name == sf.Tag.Get("short") {
fmt.Printf("%+v, %T\n", f.Value, f.Value)
// PRINTS: true, *flag.boolValue
if v, ok := f.Value.(bool); ok {
fmt.Println("ok")
} else {
fmt.Println("not ok")
}
// ERROR: impossible type assertion: bool does not implement flag.Value (missing Set method)
field.Set(reflect.ValueOf(f.Value))
// PANIC: value of type *flag.boolValue is not assignable to type bool
}
})
})
f.Value is an interface type flag.Value abstracting all kinds of flag values. As your code indicates, it's not of type bool but some non-exported *flag.boolValue. You shouldn't be concerned about its dynamic type.
You may use the Value.String() method to get its value as a string, which will be either "false" or "true" for bool types, you may use simple comparison to obtain a bool from it like f.Value.String() == "true".
But a better approach would be: all flag.Value values originating from the flag package also implement flag.Getter which also has a Get() method that will directly return a bool value in case of a bool flag (wrapped in interface{} of course). Just use that:
field.Set(reflect.ValueOf(f.Value.(flag.Getter).Get()))
The above works for fields of any type (given that the flag's value type is assignable to the field's type).
For bool fields only, alternatively you may also use:
field.SetBool(f.Value.(flag.Getter).Get().(bool))
I have this problem which seems a bit weird to me. Take a look at this snippet of code:
package coreinterfaces
type FilterInterface interface {
Filter(s *string) bool
}
type FieldFilter struct {
Key string
Val string
}
func (ff *FieldFilter) Filter(s *string) bool {
// Some code
}
type FilterMapInterface interface {
AddFilter(f *FilterInterface) uuid.UUID
RemoveFilter(i uuid.UUID)
GetFilterByID(i uuid.UUID) *FilterInterface
}
type FilterMap struct {
mutex sync.Mutex
Filters map[uuid.UUID]FilterInterface
}
func (fp *FilterMap) AddFilter(f *FilterInterface) uuid.UUID {
// Some code
}
func (fp *FilterMap) RemoveFilter(i uuid.UUID) {
// Some code
}
func (fp *FilterMap) GetFilterByID(i uuid.UUID) *FilterInterface {
// Some code
}
On some other package, I have the following code:
func DoFilter() {
fieldfilter := &coreinterfaces.FieldFilter{Key: "app", Val: "152511"}
filtermap := &coreinterfaces.FilterMap{}
_ = filtermap.AddFilter(fieldfilter) // <--- Exception is raised here
}
The run-time won't accept the line mentioned because
"cannot use fieldfilter (type *coreinterfaces.FieldFilter) as type
*coreinterfaces.FilterInterface in argument to fieldint.AddFilter:
*coreinterfaces.FilterInterface is pointer to interface, not interface"
However, when changing the code to:
func DoBid() error {
bs := string(b)
var ifilterfield coreinterfaces.FilterInterface
fieldfilter := &coreinterfaces.FieldFilter{Key: "app", Val: "152511"}
ifilterfield = fieldfilter
filtermap := &coreinterfaces.FilterMap{}
_ = filtermap.AddFilter(&ifilterfield)
}
Everything is alright and when debugging the application it really seems to include
I'm a bit confused on this topic. When looking at other blog posts and stack overflow threads discussing this exact same issue (for example - This, or
This) the first snippet which raises this exception should work, because both fieldfilter and fieldmap are initialized as pointers to interfaces, rather than value of interfaces. I haven't been able to wrap my head around what actually happens here that I need to change in order for me not to declare a FieldInterface and assign the implementation for that interface. There must be an elegant way to do this.
So you're confusing two concepts here. A pointer to a struct and a pointer to an interface are not the same. An interface can store either a struct directly or a pointer to a struct. In the latter case, you still just use the interface directly, not a pointer to the interface. For example:
type Fooer interface {
Dummy()
}
type Foo struct{}
func (f Foo) Dummy() {}
func main() {
var f1 Foo
var f2 *Foo = &Foo{}
DoFoo(f1)
DoFoo(f2)
}
func DoFoo(f Fooer) {
fmt.Printf("[%T] %+v\n", f, f)
}
Output:
[main.Foo] {}
[*main.Foo] &{}
https://play.golang.org/p/I7H_pv5H3Xl
In both cases, the f variable in DoFoo is just an interface, not a pointer to an interface. However, when storing f2, the interface holds a pointer to a Foo structure.
Pointers to interfaces are almost never useful. In fact, the Go runtime was specifically changed a few versions back to no longer automatically dereference interface pointers (like it does for structure pointers), to discourage their use. In the overwhelming majority of cases, a pointer to an interface reflects a misunderstanding of how interfaces are supposed to work.
However, there is a limitation on interfaces. If you pass a structure directly into an interface, only value methods of that type (ie. func (f Foo) Dummy(), not func (f *Foo) Dummy()) can be used to fulfill the interface. This is because you're storing a copy of the original structure in the interface, so pointer methods would have unexpected effects (ie. unable to alter the original structure). Thus the default rule of thumb is to store pointers to structures in interfaces, unless there's a compelling reason not to.
Specifically with your code, if you change the AddFilter function signature to:
func (fp *FilterMap) AddFilter(f FilterInterface) uuid.UUID
And the GetFilterByID signature to:
func (fp *FilterMap) GetFilterByID(i uuid.UUID) FilterInterface
Your code will work as expected. fieldfilter is of type *FieldFilter, which fullfills the FilterInterface interface type, and thus AddFilter will accept it.
Here's a couple of good references for understanding how methods, types, and interfaces work and integrate with each other in Go:
https://medium.com/#agileseeker/go-interfaces-pointers-4d1d98d5c9c6
https://www.goinggo.net/2014/05/methods-interfaces-and-embedded-types.html
https://blog.golang.org/laws-of-reflection
GetFilterByID(i uuid.UUID) *FilterInterface
When I get this error, it's usually because I'm specifying a pointer to an interface instead of an interface ( that will actually be a pointer to my struct that fulfills the interface ).
There's a valid use for *interface{...} but more commonly I just am thinking 'this is a pointer' instead of 'this is an interface which happens to be a pointer in the code I'm writing'
I have a struct type with a *int64 field.
type SomeType struct {
SomeField *int64
}
At some point in my code, I want to declare a literal of this (say, when I know said value should be 0, or pointing to a 0, you know what I mean)
instance := SomeType{
SomeField: &0,
}
...except this doesn't work
./main.go:xx: cannot use &0 (type *int) as type *int64 in field value
So I try this
instance := SomeType{
SomeField: &int64(0),
}
...but this also doesn't work
./main.go:xx: cannot take the address of int64(0)
How do I do this? The only solution I can come up with is using a placeholder variable
var placeholder int64
placeholder = 0
instance := SomeType{
SomeField: &placeholder,
}
Note: the &0 syntax works fine when it's a *int instead of an *int64. Edit: no it does not. Sorry about this.
Edit:
Aparently there was too much ambiguity to my question. I'm looking for a way to literally state a *int64. This could be used inside a constructor, or to state literal struct values, or even as arguments to other functions. But helper functions or using a different type are not solutions I'm looking for.
The Go Language Specification (Address operators) does not allow to take the address of a numeric constant (not of an untyped nor of a typed constant).
The operand must be addressable, that is, either a variable, pointer indirection, or slice indexing operation; or a field selector of an addressable struct operand; or an array indexing operation of an addressable array. As an exception to the addressability requirement, x [in the expression of &x] may also be a (possibly parenthesized) composite literal.
For reasoning why this isn't allowed, see related question: Find address of constant in go. A similar question (similarly not allowed to take its address): How can I store reference to the result of an operation in Go?
0) Generic solution (from Go 1.18)
Generics are added in Go 1.18. This means we can create a single, generic Ptr() function that returns a pointer to whatever value we pass to it. Hopefully it'll get added to the standard library. Until then, you can use github.com/icza/gog, the gog.Ptr() function (disclosure: I'm the author).
This is how it can look like:
func Ptr[T any](v T) *T {
return &v
}
Testing it:
i := Ptr(2)
log.Printf("%T %v", i, *i)
s := Ptr("abc")
log.Printf("%T %v", s, *s)
x := Ptr[any](nil)
log.Printf("%T %v", x, *x)
Which will output (try it on the Go Playground):
2009/11/10 23:00:00 *int 2
2009/11/10 23:00:00 *string abc
2009/11/10 23:00:00 *interface {} <nil>
Your other options (prior to Go 1.18) (try all on the Go Playground):
1) With new()
You can simply use the builtin new() function to allocate a new zero-valued int64 and get its address:
instance := SomeType{
SomeField: new(int64),
}
But note that this can only be used to allocate and obtain a pointer to the zero value of any type.
2) With helper variable
Simplest and recommended for non-zero elements is to use a helper variable whose address can be taken:
helper := int64(2)
instance2 := SomeType{
SomeField: &helper,
}
3) With helper function
Note: Helper functions to acquire a pointer to a non-zero value are available in my github.com/icza/gox library, in the gox package, so you don't have to add these to all your projects where you need it.
Or if you need this many times, you can create a helper function which allocates and returns an *int64:
func create(x int64) *int64 {
return &x
}
And using it:
instance3 := SomeType{
SomeField: create(3),
}
Note that we actually didn't allocate anything, the Go compiler did that when we returned the address of the function argument. The Go compiler performs escape analysis, and allocates local variables on the heap (instead of the stack) if they may escape the function. For details, see Is returning a slice of a local array in a Go function safe?
4) With a one-liner anonymous function
instance4 := SomeType{
SomeField: func() *int64 { i := int64(4); return &i }(),
}
Or as a (shorter) alternative:
instance4 := SomeType{
SomeField: func(i int64) *int64 { return &i }(4),
}
5) With slice literal, indexing and taking address
If you would want *SomeField to be other than 0, then you need something addressable.
You can still do that, but that's ugly:
instance5 := SomeType{
SomeField: &[]int64{5}[0],
}
fmt.Println(*instance2.SomeField) // Prints 5
What happens here is an []int64 slice is created with a literal, having one element (5). And it is indexed (0th element) and the address of the 0th element is taken. In the background an array of [1]int64 will also be allocated and used as the backing array for the slice. So there is a lot of boilerplate here.
6) With a helper struct literal
Let's examine the exception to the addressability requirements:
As an exception to the addressability requirement, x [in the expression of &x] may also be a (possibly parenthesized) composite literal.
This means that taking the address of a composite literal, e.g. a struct literal is ok. If we do so, we will have the struct value allocated and a pointer obtained to it. But if so, another requirement will become available to us: "field selector of an addressable struct operand". So if the struct literal contains a field of type int64, we can also take the address of that field!
Let's see this option in action. We will use this wrapper struct type:
type intwrapper struct {
x int64
}
And now we can do:
instance6 := SomeType{
SomeField: &(&intwrapper{6}).x,
}
Note that this
&(&intwrapper{6}).x
means the following:
& ( (&intwrapper{6}).x )
But we can omit the "outer" parenthesis as the address operator & is applied to the result of the selector expression.
Also note that in the background the following will happen (this is also a valid syntax):
&(*(&intwrapper{6})).x
7) With helper anonymous struct literal
The principle is the same as with case #6, but we can also use an anonymous struct literal, so no helper/wrapper struct type definition needed:
instance7 := SomeType{
SomeField: &(&struct{ x int64 }{7}).x,
}
Use a function which return an address of an int64 variable to solve the problem.
In the below code we use function f which accepts an integer and
returns a pointer value which holds the address of the integer. By using this method we can easily solve the above problem.
type myStr struct {
url *int64
}
func main() {
f := func(s int64) *int64 {
return &s
}
myStr{
url: f(12345),
}
}
There is another elegant way to achieve this which doesn't produce much boilerplate code and doesn't look ugly in my opinion. In case I need a struct with pointers to primitives instead of values, to make sure that zero-valued struct members aren't used across the project, I will create a function with those primitives as arguments.
You can define a function which creates your struct and then pass primitives to this function and then use pointers to function arguments.
type Config struct {
Code *uint8
Name *string
}
func NewConfig(code uint8, name string) *Config {
return &Config{
Code: &code,
Name: &name,
}
}
func UseConfig() {
config := NewConfig(1, "test")
// ...
}
// in case there are many values, modern IDE will highlight argument names for you, so you don't have to remember
func UseConfig2() {
config := NewConfig(
1,
"test",
)
// ...
}
If you don't mind using third party libraries, there's the lo package which uses generics (go 1.18+) which has the .ToPtr() function
ptr := lo.ToPtr("hello world")
// *string{"hello world"}
Both of the reflect.Type interface and reflect.Value type implement the same Kind() method signature, suppose that we have some value object v := reflect.ValueOf(x)
Is v.Kind() just call v.Type().Kind() ?
They contain the same value, but do not seem to refer to the same thing:
type.go source
value.go source
A Type is usually implemented by unexported struct rtype (via TypeOf), while the Value contains a *rtype and extends flag, which is itself a reduced form of the Kind:
// flag holds metadata about the value.
// The lowest bits are flag bits:
// - flagRO: obtained via unexported field, so read-only
// - flagIndir: val holds a pointer to the data
// - flagAddr: v.CanAddr is true (implies flagIndir)
// - flagMethod: v is a method value.
// The next five bits give the Kind of the value.
// This repeats typ.Kind() except for method values.
// The remaining 23+ bits give a method number for method values.
// If flag.kind() != Func, code can assume that flagMethod is unset.
// If typ.size > ptrSize, code can assume that flagIndir is set.
When getting the ValueOf something:
// ValueOf returns a new Value initialized to the concrete value
// stored in the interface i. ValueOf(nil) returns the zero Value.
func ValueOf(i interface{}) Value {
[...]
// For an interface value with the noAddr bit set,
// the representation is identical to an empty interface.
eface := *(*emptyInterface)(unsafe.Pointer(&i))
typ := eface.typ
/** Flag is built from the type, then kept separate (my comment) */
fl := flag(typ.Kind()) << flagKindShift
if typ.size > ptrSize {
fl |= flagIndir
}
return Value{typ, unsafe.Pointer(eface.word), fl}
}
And so when you get the kind of a Value (remember it extends its flag):
func (v Value) Kind() Kind {
return v.kind()
}
func (f flag) kind() Kind {
return Kind((f >> flagKindShift) & flagKindMask)
}
While getting the kind of a type: (Type is an interface, usually implemented by *rtype)
func (t *rtype) Kind() Kind { return Kind(t.kind & kindMask) }
So although they seem to be equal in most of the cases, v.Kind() is not v.Type().Kind()
The file reflect/value.go states that the relevant field in the implementation of reflect.Value "repeats typ.Kind() except for method values". So, unless the value is a method, value.Kind() and value.Type().Kind() return the same number.
I want to extend the regexp from the Go standard library to be able to define my own methods. I use the following struct:
type RichRegexp struct {
*regexp.Regexp
}
As you can see, this struct contains nothing but the wrapped regexp.Regexp. So I wonder whether I could replace this with a simple type declaration like this:
type RichRegexp regexp.Regexp
But how should I write the following func then?
func Compile(expression string) (*RichRegexp, error) {
regex, err := regexp.Compile(expression)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return &RichRegexp{regex}, nil // How to do this?
}
I tried to convert regexp.Regexp to my RichRegexp but it didn't compile. What is the general pattern to return a custom type which wraps a underlying type?
You can use a conversion, but in this case it is necessary, that your type definition is not a pointer:
type MyRegexp *regexp.Regexp // Doesn't work
This is backed by the spec:
The receiver type must be of the form T or *T where T is a type name.
The type denoted by T is called the receiver base type; it must not be
a pointer or interface type and it must be declared in the same
package as the method. The method is said to be bound to the base type
and the method name is visible only within selectors for that type.
However, you can do this:
type MyRegexp regexp.Regexp
As you're handling values now, you can do the following:
x := regexp.MustCompile(".*")
y := MyRegexp(*x)
And you have your own regexp type.
Full code at play: http://play.golang.org/p/OWNdA2FinN
As a general pattern, I would would say:
If it's unlikely to change and you don't need to store arbitrary values, use
a type conversion.
If you need to store values along with your embedded type, use a struct.
If your code is likely to change and needs to support large varieties of things,
define an interface and don't use embedding / type conversion.
package main
import (
"regexp"
)
type RichRegexp regexp.Regexp
func Compile(expression string) (*RichRegexp, error) {
regex, err := regexp.Compile(expression)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return (*RichRegexp)(regex), nil
}
func main() {
Compile("foo")
}
Also here: http://play.golang.org/p/cgpi8z2CfF