The Go Programming Language Specification - The Go Pr... https://go.

dev/ref/spec

The Go Programming Language

Specification
Language version go1.24 (Dec 30, 2024)

Table of Contents
Introduction Type assertions
Notation Calls
Source code representation Passing arguments to ... parameters
Characters Instantiations
Letters and digits Type inference
Lexical elements Operators
Comments Arithmetic operators
Tokens Comparison operators
Semicolons Logical operators
Identifiers Address operators
Keywords Receive operator
Operators and punctuation Conversions
Integer literals Constant expressions
Floating-point literals Order of evaluation
Imaginary literals Statements
Rune literals Terminating statements
String literals Empty statements
Constants Labeled statements
Variables Expression statements
Types Send statements
Boolean types IncDec statements
Numeric types Assignment statements
String types If statements
Array types Switch statements
Slice types For statements
Struct types Go statements
Pointer types Select statements
Function types Return statements
Interface types Break statements
Map types Continue statements
Channel types Goto statements
Properties of types and values Fallthrough statements
Representation of values Defer statements
Underlying types Built-in functions
Core types Appending to and copying slices
Type identity Clear
Assignability Close
Representability Manipulating complex numbers
Method sets Deletion of map elements
Blocks Length and capacity
Declarations and scope Making slices, maps and channels
Label scopes Min and max

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Blank identifier Allocation

Predeclared identifiers Handling panics
Exported identifiers Bootstrapping
Uniqueness of identifiers Packages
Constant declarations Source file organization
Iota Package clause
Type declarations Import declarations
Type parameter declarations An example package
Variable declarations Program initialization and execution
Short variable declarations The zero value
Function declarations Package initialization
Method declarations Program initialization
Expressions Program execution
Operands Errors
Qualified identifiers Run-time panics
Composite literals System considerations
Function literals Package unsafe
Primary expressions Size and alignment guarantees
Selectors Appendix
Method expressions Language versions
Method values Type unification rules
Index expressions
Slice expressions

Introduction
This is the reference manual for the Go programming language. The pre-Go1.18 version,
without generics, can be found here. For more information and other documents, see
go.dev.

Go is a general-purpose language designed with systems programming in mind. It is

strongly typed and garbage-collected and has explicit support for concurrent programming.
Programs are constructed from packages, whose properties allow efficient management of
dependencies.

The syntax is compact and simple to parse, allowing for easy analysis by automatic tools
such as integrated development environments.

Notation
The syntax is specified using a variant of Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF):

Syntax = { Production } .
Production = production_name "=" [ Expression ] "." .
Expression = Term { "|" Term } .
Term = Factor { Factor } .
Factor = production_name | token [ "…" token ] | Group | Option | Repetition .
Group = "(" Expression ")" .
Option = "[" Expression "]" .
Repetition = "{" Expression "}" .

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Productions are expressions constructed from terms and the following operators, in
increasing precedence:

| alternation
() grouping
[] option (0 or 1 times)
{} repetition (0 to n times)

Lowercase production names are used to identify lexical (terminal) tokens. Non-terminals
are in CamelCase. Lexical tokens are enclosed in double quotes "" or back quotes ``.

The form a … b represents the set of characters from a through b as alternatives. The
horizontal ellipsis … is also used elsewhere in the spec to informally denote various
enumerations or code snippets that are not further specified. The character … (as opposed
to the three characters ...) is not a token of the Go language.

A link of the form [Go 1.xx] indicates that a described language feature (or some aspect of
it) was changed or added with language version 1.xx and thus requires at minimum that
language version to build. For details, see the linked section in the appendix.

Source code representation

Source code is Unicode text encoded in UTF-8. The text is not canonicalized, so a single
accented code point is distinct from the same character constructed from combining an
accent and a letter; those are treated as two code points. For simplicity, this document will
use the unqualified term character to refer to a Unicode code point in the source text.

Each code point is distinct; for instance, uppercase and lowercase letters are different
characters.

Implementation restriction: For compatibility with other tools, a compiler may disallow the
NUL character (U+0000) in the source text.

Implementation restriction: For compatibility with other tools, a compiler may ignore a
UTF-8-encoded byte order mark (U+FEFF) if it is the first Unicode code point in the source
text. A byte order mark may be disallowed anywhere else in the source.

Characters

The following terms are used to denote specific Unicode character categories:

newline = /* the Unicode code point U+000A */ .

unicode_char = /* an arbitrary Unicode code point except newline */ .
unicode_letter = /* a Unicode code point categorized as "Letter" */ .
unicode_digit = /* a Unicode code point categorized as "Number, decimal digit" */ .

In The Unicode Standard 8.0, Section 4.5 "General Category" defines a set of character
categories. Go treats all characters in any of the Letter categories Lu, Ll, Lt, Lm, or Lo as

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Unicode letters, and those in the Number category Nd as Unicode digits.

Letters and digits

The underscore character _ (U+005F) is considered a lowercase letter.

letter = unicode_letter | "_" .

decimal_digit = "0" … "9" .
binary_digit = "0" | "1" .
octal_digit = "0" … "7" .
hex_digit = "0" … "9" | "A" … "F" | "a" … "f" .

Lexical elements
Comments

Comments serve as program documentation. There are two forms:

1. Line comments start with the character sequence // and stop at the end of the line.
2. General comments start with the character sequence /* and stop with the first
subsequent character sequence */.

A comment cannot start inside a rune or string literal, or inside a comment. A general
comment containing no newlines acts like a space. Any other comment acts like a newline.

Tokens

Tokens form the vocabulary of the Go language. There are four classes: identifiers,
keywords, operators and punctuation, and literals. White space, formed from spaces
(U+0020), horizontal tabs (U+0009), carriage returns (U+000D), and newlines (U+000A), is
ignored except as it separates tokens that would otherwise combine into a single token.
Also, a newline or end of file may trigger the insertion of a semicolon. While breaking the
input into tokens, the next token is the longest sequence of characters that form a valid
token.

Semicolons

The formal syntax uses semicolons ";" as terminators in a number of productions. Go

programs may omit most of these semicolons using the following two rules:

1. When the input is broken into tokens, a semicolon is automatically inserted into the
token stream immediately after a line's final token if that token is

◦ an identifier
◦ an integer, floating-point, imaginary, rune, or string literal
◦ one of the keywords break, continue, fallthrough, or return
◦ one of the operators and punctuation ++, --, ), ], or }

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2. To allow complex statements to occupy a single line, a semicolon may be omitted

before a closing ")" or "}".

To reflect idiomatic use, code examples in this document elide semicolons using these
rules.

Identifiers

Identifiers name program entities such as variables and types. An identifier is a sequence of
one or more letters and digits. The first character in an identifier must be a letter.

identifier = letter { letter | unicode_digit } .

a
_x9
ThisVariableIsExported
αβ

Some identifiers are predeclared.

Keywords

The following keywords are reserved and may not be used as identifiers.

break default func interface select

case defer go map struct
chan else goto package switch
const fallthrough if range type
continue for import return var

Operators and punctuation

The following character sequences represent operators (including assignment operators)

and punctuation [Go 1.18]:

+ & += &= && == != ( )

- | -= |= || < <= [ ]
* ^ *= ^= <- > >= { }
/ << /= <<= ++ = := , ;
% >> %= >>= -- ! ... . :
&^ &^= ~

Integer literals

An integer literal is a sequence of digits representing an integer constant. An optional prefix

sets a non-decimal base: 0b or 0B for binary, 0, 0o, or 0O for octal, and 0x or 0X for
hexadecimal [Go 1.13]. A single 0 is considered a decimal zero. In hexadecimal literals,
letters a through f and A through F represent values 10 through 15.

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For readability, an underscore character _ may appear after a base prefix or between
successive digits; such underscores do not change the literal's value.

int_lit = decimal_lit | binary_lit | octal_lit | hex_lit .

decimal_lit = "0" | ( "1" … "9" ) [ [ "_" ] decimal_digits ] .
binary_lit = "0" ( "b" | "B" ) [ "_" ] binary_digits .
octal_lit = "0" [ "o" | "O" ] [ "_" ] octal_digits .
hex_lit = "0" ( "x" | "X" ) [ "_" ] hex_digits .

decimal_digits = decimal_digit { [ "_" ] decimal_digit } .

binary_digits = binary_digit { [ "_" ] binary_digit } .
octal_digits = octal_digit { [ "_" ] octal_digit } .
hex_digits = hex_digit { [ "_" ] hex_digit } .

42
4_2
0600
0_600
0o600
0O600 // second character is capital letter 'O'
0xBadFace
0xBad_Face
0x_67_7a_2f_cc_40_c6
170141183460469231731687303715884105727
170_141183_460469_231731_687303_715884_105727

_42 // an identifier, not an integer literal

42_ // invalid: _ must separate successive digits
4__2 // invalid: only one _ at a time
0_xBadFace // invalid: _ must separate successive digits

Floating-point literals

A floating-point literal is a decimal or hexadecimal representation of a floating-point

constant.

A decimal floating-point literal consists of an integer part (decimal digits), a decimal point, a
fractional part (decimal digits), and an exponent part (e or E followed by an optional sign
and decimal digits). One of the integer part or the fractional part may be elided; one of the
decimal point or the exponent part may be elided. An exponent value exp scales the
mantissa (integer and fractional part) by 10exp.

A hexadecimal floating-point literal consists of a 0x or 0X prefix, an integer part

(hexadecimal digits), a radix point, a fractional part (hexadecimal digits), and an exponent
part (p or P followed by an optional sign and decimal digits). One of the integer part or the
fractional part may be elided; the radix point may be elided as well, but the exponent part is
required. (This syntax matches the one given in IEEE 754-2008 §5.12.3.) An exponent
value exp scales the mantissa (integer and fractional part) by 2exp [Go 1.13].

For readability, an underscore character _ may appear after a base prefix or between

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successive digits; such underscores do not change the literal value.

float_lit = decimal_float_lit | hex_float_lit .

decimal_float_lit = decimal_digits "." [ decimal_digits ] [ decimal_exponent ] |

decimal_digits decimal_exponent |
"." decimal_digits [ decimal_exponent ] .
decimal_exponent = ( "e" | "E" ) [ "+" | "-" ] decimal_digits .

hex_float_lit = "0" ( "x" | "X" ) hex_mantissa hex_exponent .

hex_mantissa = [ "_" ] hex_digits "." [ hex_digits ] |
[ "_" ] hex_digits |
"." hex_digits .
hex_exponent = ( "p" | "P" ) [ "+" | "-" ] decimal_digits .

0.
72.40
072.40 // == 72.40
2.71828
1.e+0
6.67428e-11
1E6
.25
.12345E+5
1_5. // == 15.0
0.15e+0_2 // == 15.0

0x1p-2 // == 0.25
0x2.p10 // == 2048.0
0x1.Fp+0 // == 1.9375
0X.8p-0 // == 0.5
0X_1FFFP-16 // == 0.1249847412109375
0x15e-2 // == 0x15e - 2 (integer subtraction)

0x.p1 // invalid: mantissa has no digits

1p-2 // invalid: p exponent requires hexadecimal mantissa
0x1.5e-2 // invalid: hexadecimal mantissa requires p exponent
1_.5 // invalid: _ must separate successive digits
1._5 // invalid: _ must separate successive digits
1.5_e1 // invalid: _ must separate successive digits
1.5e_1 // invalid: _ must separate successive digits
1.5e1_ // invalid: _ must separate successive digits

Imaginary literals

An imaginary literal represents the imaginary part of a complex constant. It consists of an

integer or floating-point literal followed by the lowercase letter i. The value of an imaginary
literal is the value of the respective integer or floating-point literal multiplied by the imaginary
unit i [Go 1.13]

imaginary_lit = (decimal_digits | int_lit | float_lit) "i" .

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For backward compatibility, an imaginary literal's integer part consisting entirely of decimal
digits (and possibly underscores) is considered a decimal integer, even if it starts with a
leading 0.

0i
0123i // == 123i for backward-compatibility
0o123i // == 0o123 * 1i == 83i
0xabci // == 0xabc * 1i == 2748i
0.i
2.71828i
1.e+0i
6.67428e-11i
1E6i
.25i
.12345E+5i
0x1p-2i // == 0x1p-2 * 1i == 0.25i

Rune literals

A rune literal represents a rune constant, an integer value identifying a Unicode code point.
A rune literal is expressed as one or more characters enclosed in single quotes, as in 'x'
or '\n'. Within the quotes, any character may appear except newline and unescaped
single quote. A single quoted character represents the Unicode value of the character itself,
while multi-character sequences beginning with a backslash encode values in various
formats.

The simplest form represents the single character within the quotes; since Go source text is
Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8, multiple UTF-8-encoded bytes may represent a
single integer value. For instance, the literal 'a' holds a single byte representing a literal a,
Unicode U+0061, value 0x61, while 'ä' holds two bytes (0xc3 0xa4) representing a literal
a-dieresis, U+00E4, value 0xe4.

Several backslash escapes allow arbitrary values to be encoded as ASCII text. There are
four ways to represent the integer value as a numeric constant: \x followed by exactly two
hexadecimal digits; \u followed by exactly four hexadecimal digits; \U followed by exactly
eight hexadecimal digits, and a plain backslash \ followed by exactly three octal digits. In
each case the value of the literal is the value represented by the digits in the corresponding
base.

Although these representations all result in an integer, they have different valid ranges.
Octal escapes must represent a value between 0 and 255 inclusive. Hexadecimal escapes
satisfy this condition by construction. The escapes \u and \U represent Unicode code
points so within them some values are illegal, in particular those above 0x10FFFF and
surrogate halves.

After a backslash, certain single-character escapes represent special values:

\a U+0007 alert or bell

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\b U+0008 backspace
\f U+000C form feed
\n U+000A line feed or newline
\r U+000D carriage return
\t U+0009 horizontal tab
\v U+000B vertical tab
\\ U+005C backslash
\' U+0027 single quote (valid escape only within rune literals)
\" U+0022 double quote (valid escape only within string literals)

An unrecognized character following a backslash in a rune literal is illegal.

rune_lit = "'" ( unicode_value | byte_value ) "'" .

unicode_value = unicode_char | little_u_value | big_u_value | escaped_char .
byte_value = octal_byte_value | hex_byte_value .
octal_byte_value = `\` octal_digit octal_digit octal_digit .
hex_byte_value = `\` "x" hex_digit hex_digit .
little_u_value = `\` "u" hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit .
big_u_value = `\` "U" hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit
hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit hex_digit .
escaped_char = `\` ( "a" | "b" | "f" | "n" | "r" | "t" | "v" | `\` | "'" | `"` ) .

'a'
'ä'
'本'
'\t'
'\000'
'\007'
'\377'
'\x07'
'\xff'
'\u12e4'
'\U00101234'
'\'' // rune literal containing single quote character
'aa' // illegal: too many characters
'\k' // illegal: k is not recognized after a backslash
'\xa' // illegal: too few hexadecimal digits
'\0' // illegal: too few octal digits
'\400' // illegal: octal value over 255
'\uDFFF' // illegal: surrogate half
'\U00110000' // illegal: invalid Unicode code point

String literals

A string literal represents a string constant obtained from concatenating a sequence of

characters. There are two forms: raw string literals and interpreted string literals.

Raw string literals are character sequences between back quotes, as in `foo`. Within the
quotes, any character may appear except back quote. The value of a raw string literal is the
string composed of the uninterpreted (implicitly UTF-8-encoded) characters between the
quotes; in particular, backslashes have no special meaning and the string may contain

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newlines. Carriage return characters ('\r') inside raw string literals are discarded from the
raw string value.

Interpreted string literals are character sequences between double quotes, as in "bar".
Within the quotes, any character may appear except newline and unescaped double quote.
The text between the quotes forms the value of the literal, with backslash escapes
interpreted as they are in rune literals (except that \' is illegal and \" is legal), with the
same restrictions. The three-digit octal (\nnn) and two-digit hexadecimal (\xnn) escapes
represent individual bytes of the resulting string; all other escapes represent the (possibly
multi-byte) UTF-8 encoding of individual characters. Thus inside a string literal \377 and
\xFF represent a single byte of value 0xFF=255, while ÿ, \u00FF, \U000000FF and
\xc3\xbf represent the two bytes 0xc3 0xbf of the UTF-8 encoding of character
U+00FF.

string_lit = raw_string_lit | interpreted_string_lit .

raw_string_lit = "`" { unicode_char | newline } "`" .
interpreted_string_lit = `"` { unicode_value | byte_value } `"` .

`abc` // same as "abc"

`\n
\n` // same as "\\n\n\\n"
"\n"
"\"" // same as `"`
"Hello, world!\n"
"⽇本語"
"\u65e5本\U00008a9e"
"\xff\u00FF"
"\uD800" // illegal: surrogate half
"\U00110000" // illegal: invalid Unicode code point

These examples all represent the same string:

"⽇本語" // UTF-8 input text

`⽇本語` // UTF-8 input text as a raw literal
"\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e" // the explicit Unicode code points
"\U000065e5\U0000672c\U00008a9e" // the explicit Unicode code points
"\xe6\x97\xa5\xe6\x9c\xac\xe8\xaa\x9e" // the explicit UTF-8 bytes

If the source code represents a character as two code points, such as a combining form
involving an accent and a letter, the result will be an error if placed in a rune literal (it is not
a single code point), and will appear as two code points if placed in a string literal.

Constants
There are boolean constants, rune constants, integer constants, floating-point constants,
complex constants, and string constants. Rune, integer, floating-point, and complex
constants are collectively called numeric constants.

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A constant value is represented by a rune, integer, floating-point, imaginary, or string literal,

an identifier denoting a constant, a constant expression, a conversion with a result that is a
constant, or the result value of some built-in functions such as min or max applied to
constant arguments, unsafe.Sizeof applied to certain values, cap or len applied to
some expressions, real and imag applied to a complex constant and complex applied to
numeric constants. The boolean truth values are represented by the predeclared constants
true and false. The predeclared identifier iota denotes an integer constant.

In general, complex constants are a form of constant expression and are discussed in that
section.

Numeric constants represent exact values of arbitrary precision and do not overflow.
Consequently, there are no constants denoting the IEEE 754 negative zero, infinity, and
not-a-number values.

Constants may be typed or untyped. Literal constants, true, false, iota, and certain
constant expressions containing only untyped constant operands are untyped.

A constant may be given a type explicitly by a constant declaration or conversion, or

implicitly when used in a variable declaration or an assignment statement or as an operand
in an expression. It is an error if the constant value cannot be represented as a value of the
respective type. If the type is a type parameter, the constant is converted into a non-
constant value of the type parameter.

An untyped constant has a default type which is the type to which the constant is implicitly
converted in contexts where a typed value is required, for instance, in a short variable
declaration such as i := 0 where there is no explicit type. The default type of an untyped
constant is bool, rune, int, float64, complex128, or string respectively, depending
on whether it is a boolean, rune, integer, floating-point, complex, or string constant.

Implementation restriction: Although numeric constants have arbitrary precision in the

language, a compiler may implement them using an internal representation with limited
precision. That said, every implementation must:

• Represent integer constants with at least 256 bits.

• Represent floating-point constants, including the parts of a complex constant, with a
mantissa of at least 256 bits and a signed binary exponent of at least 16 bits.
• Give an error if unable to represent an integer constant precisely.
• Give an error if unable to represent a floating-point or complex constant due to
overflow.
• Round to the nearest representable constant if unable to represent a floating-point or
complex constant due to limits on precision.

These requirements apply both to literal constants and to the result of evaluating constant
expressions.

Variables

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A variable is a storage location for holding a value. The set of permissible values is
determined by the variable's type.

A variable declaration or, for function parameters and results, the signature of a function
declaration or function literal reserves storage for a named variable. Calling the built-in
function new or taking the address of a composite literal allocates storage for a variable at
run time. Such an anonymous variable is referred to via a (possibly implicit) pointer
indirection.

Structured variables of array, slice, and struct types have elements and fields that may be
addressed individually. Each such element acts like a variable.

The static type (or just type) of a variable is the type given in its declaration, the type
provided in the new call or composite literal, or the type of an element of a structured
variable. Variables of interface type also have a distinct dynamic type, which is the (non-
interface) type of the value assigned to the variable at run time (unless the value is the
predeclared identifier nil, which has no type). The dynamic type may vary during
execution but values stored in interface variables are always assignable to the static type of
the variable.

var x interface{} // x is nil and has static type interface{}

var v *T // v has value nil, static type *T
x = 42 // x has value 42 and dynamic type int
x = v // x has value (*T)(nil) and dynamic type *T

A variable's value is retrieved by referring to the variable in an expression; it is the most

recent value assigned to the variable. If a variable has not yet been assigned a value, its
value is the zero value for its type.

Types
A type determines a set of values together with operations and methods specific to those
values. A type may be denoted by a type name, if it has one, which must be followed by
type arguments if the type is generic. A type may also be specified using a type literal,
which composes a type from existing types.

Type = TypeName [ TypeArgs ] | TypeLit | "(" Type ")" .

TypeName = identifier | QualifiedIdent .
TypeArgs = "[" TypeList [ "," ] "]" .
TypeList = Type { "," Type } .
TypeLit = ArrayType | StructType | PointerType | FunctionType | InterfaceType |
SliceType | MapType | ChannelType .

The language predeclares certain type names. Others are introduced with type declarations
or type parameter lists. Composite types—array, struct, pointer, function, interface, slice,
map, and channel types—may be constructed using type literals.

Predeclared types, defined types, and type parameters are called named types. An alias

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denotes a named type if the type given in the alias declaration is a named type.

Boolean types

A boolean type represents the set of Boolean truth values denoted by the predeclared
constants true and false. The predeclared boolean type is bool; it is a defined type.

Numeric types

An integer, floating-point, or complex type represents the set of integer, floating-point, or

complex values, respectively. They are collectively called numeric types. The predeclared
architecture-independent numeric types are:

uint8 the set of all unsigned 8-bit integers (0 to 255)

uint16 the set of all unsigned 16-bit integers (0 to 65535)
uint32 the set of all unsigned 32-bit integers (0 to 4294967295)
uint64 the set of all unsigned 64-bit integers (0 to 18446744073709551615)

int8 the set of all signed 8-bit integers (-128 to 127)

int16 the set of all signed 16-bit integers (-32768 to 32767)
int32 the set of all signed 32-bit integers (-2147483648 to 2147483647)
int64 the set of all signed 64-bit integers (-9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854

float32 the set of all IEEE 754 32-bit floating-point numbers

float64 the set of all IEEE 754 64-bit floating-point numbers

complex64 the set of all complex numbers with float32 real and imaginary parts
complex128 the set of all complex numbers with float64 real and imaginary parts

byte alias for uint8

rune alias for int32

The value of an n-bit integer is n bits wide and represented using two's complement
arithmetic.

There is also a set of predeclared integer types with implementation-specific sizes:

uint either 32 or 64 bits

int same size as uint
uintptr an unsigned integer large enough to store the uninterpreted bits of a pointer v

To avoid portability issues all numeric types are defined types and thus distinct except
byte, which is an alias for uint8, and rune, which is an alias for int32. Explicit
conversions are required when different numeric types are mixed in an expression or
assignment. For instance, int32 and int are not the same type even though they may
have the same size on a particular architecture.

String types

A string type represents the set of string values. A string value is a (possibly empty)

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sequence of bytes. The number of bytes is called the length of the string and is never
negative. Strings are immutable: once created, it is impossible to change the contents of a
string. The predeclared string type is string; it is a defined type.

The length of a string s can be discovered using the built-in function len. The length is a
compile-time constant if the string is a constant. A string's bytes can be accessed by integer
indices 0 through len(s)-1. It is illegal to take the address of such an element; if s[i] is
the i'th byte of a string, &s[i] is invalid.

Array types

An array is a numbered sequence of elements of a single type, called the element type. The
number of elements is called the length of the array and is never negative.

ArrayType = "[" ArrayLength "]" ElementType .

ArrayLength = Expression .
ElementType = Type .

The length is part of the array's type; it must evaluate to a non-negative constant
representable by a value of type int. The length of array a can be discovered using the
built-in function len. The elements can be addressed by integer indices 0 through
len(a)-1. Array types are always one-dimensional but may be composed to form multi-
dimensional types.

[32]byte
[2*N] struct { x, y int32 }
[1000]*float64
[3][5]int
[2][2][2]float64 // same as [2]([2]([2]float64))

An array type T may not have an element of type T, or of a type containing T as a

component, directly or indirectly, if those containing types are only array or struct types.

// invalid array types

type (
T1 [10]T1 // element type of T1 is T1
T2 [10]struct{ f T2 } // T2 contains T2 as component of a struct
T3 [10]T4 // T3 contains T3 as component of a struct in T4
T4 struct{ f T3 } // T4 contains T4 as component of array T3 in a struct
)

// valid array types

type (
T5 [10]*T5 // T5 contains T5 as component of a pointer
T6 [10]func() T6 // T6 contains T6 as component of a function type
T7 [10]struct{ f []T7 } // T7 contains T7 as component of a slice in a struct
)

Slice types

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A slice is a descriptor for a contiguous segment of an underlying array and provides access
to a numbered sequence of elements from that array. A slice type denotes the set of all
slices of arrays of its element type. The number of elements is called the length of the slice
and is never negative. The value of an uninitialized slice is nil.

SliceType = "[" "]" ElementType .

The length of a slice s can be discovered by the built-in function len; unlike with arrays it
may change during execution. The elements can be addressed by integer indices 0 through
len(s)-1. The slice index of a given element may be less than the index of the same
element in the underlying array.

A slice, once initialized, is always associated with an underlying array that holds its
elements. A slice therefore shares storage with its array and with other slices of the same
array; by contrast, distinct arrays always represent distinct storage.

The array underlying a slice may extend past the end of the slice. The capacity is a
measure of that extent: it is the sum of the length of the slice and the length of the array
beyond the slice; a slice of length up to that capacity can be created by slicing a new one
from the original slice. The capacity of a slice a can be discovered using the built-in function
cap(a).

A new, initialized slice value for a given element type T may be made using the built-in
function make, which takes a slice type and parameters specifying the length and optionally
the capacity. A slice created with make always allocates a new, hidden array to which the
returned slice value refers. That is, executing

make([]T, length, capacity)

produces the same slice as allocating an array and slicing it, so these two expressions are
equivalent:

make([]int, 50, 100)

new([100]int)[0:50]

Like arrays, slices are always one-dimensional but may be composed to construct higher-
dimensional objects. With arrays of arrays, the inner arrays are, by construction, always the
same length; however with slices of slices (or arrays of slices), the inner lengths may vary
dynamically. Moreover, the inner slices must be initialized individually.

Struct types

A struct is a sequence of named elements, called fields, each of which has a name and a
type. Field names may be specified explicitly (IdentifierList) or implicitly (EmbeddedField).
Within a struct, non-blank field names must be unique.

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StructType = "struct" "{" { FieldDecl ";" } "}" .

FieldDecl = (IdentifierList Type | EmbeddedField) [ Tag ] .
EmbeddedField = [ "*" ] TypeName [ TypeArgs ] .
Tag = string_lit .

// An empty struct.
struct {}

// A struct with 6 fields.

struct {
x, y int
u float32
_ float32 // padding
A *[]int
F func()
}

A field declared with a type but no explicit field name is called an embedded field. An
embedded field must be specified as a type name T or as a pointer to a non-interface type
name *T, and T itself may not be a pointer type or type parameter. The unqualified type
name acts as the field name.

// A struct with four embedded fields of types T1, *T2, P.T3 and *P.T4
struct {
T1 // field name is T1
*T2 // field name is T2
P.T3 // field name is T3
*P.T4 // field name is T4
x, y int // field names are x and y
}

The following declaration is illegal because field names must be unique in a struct type:

struct {
T // conflicts with embedded field *T and *P.T
*T // conflicts with embedded field T and *P.T
*P.T // conflicts with embedded field T and *T
}

A field or method f of an embedded field in a struct x is called promoted if x.f is a legal

selector that denotes that field or method f.

Promoted fields act like ordinary fields of a struct except that they cannot be used as field
names in composite literals of the struct.

Given a struct type S and a type name T, promoted methods are included in the method set
of the struct as follows:

• If S contains an embedded field T, the method sets of S and *S both include promoted

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methods with receiver T. The method set of *S also includes promoted methods with
receiver *T.
• If S contains an embedded field *T, the method sets of S and *S both include
promoted methods with receiver T or *T.

A field declaration may be followed by an optional string literal tag, which becomes an
attribute for all the fields in the corresponding field declaration. An empty tag string is
equivalent to an absent tag. The tags are made visible through a reflection interface and
take part in type identity for structs but are otherwise ignored.

struct {
x, y float64 "" // an empty tag string is like an absent tag
name string "any string is permitted as a tag"
_ [4]byte "ceci n'est pas un champ de structure"
}

// A struct corresponding to a TimeStamp protocol buffer.

// The tag strings define the protocol buffer field numbers;
// they follow the convention outlined by the reflect package.
struct {
microsec uint64 `protobuf:"1"`
serverIP6 uint64 `protobuf:"2"`
}

A struct type T may not contain a field of type T, or of a type containing T as a component,
directly or indirectly, if those containing types are only array or struct types.

// invalid struct types

type (
T1 struct{ T1 } // T1 contains a field of T1
T2 struct{ f [10]T2 } // T2 contains T2 as component of an array
T3 struct{ T4 } // T3 contains T3 as component of an array in struct
T4 struct{ f [10]T3 } // T4 contains T4 as component of struct T3 in an arr
)

// valid struct types

type (
T5 struct{ f *T5 } // T5 contains T5 as component of a pointer
T6 struct{ f func() T6 } // T6 contains T6 as component of a function type
T7 struct{ f [10][]T7 } // T7 contains T7 as component of a slice in an array
)

Pointer types

A pointer type denotes the set of all pointers to variables of a given type, called the base
type of the pointer. The value of an uninitialized pointer is nil.

PointerType = "*" BaseType .

BaseType = Type .

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*Point
*[4]int

Function types

A function type denotes the set of all functions with the same parameter and result types.
The value of an uninitialized variable of function type is nil.

FunctionType = "func" Signature .

Signature = Parameters [ Result ] .
Result = Parameters | Type .
Parameters = "(" [ ParameterList [ "," ] ] ")" .
ParameterList = ParameterDecl { "," ParameterDecl } .
ParameterDecl = [ IdentifierList ] [ "..." ] Type .

Within a list of parameters or results, the names (IdentifierList) must either all be present or
all be absent. If present, each name stands for one item (parameter or result) of the
specified type and all non-blank names in the signature must be unique. If absent, each
type stands for one item of that type. Parameter and result lists are always parenthesized
except that if there is exactly one unnamed result it may be written as an unparenthesized
type.

The final incoming parameter in a function signature may have a type prefixed with .... A
function with such a parameter is called variadic and may be invoked with zero or more
arguments for that parameter.

func()
func(x int) int
func(a, _ int, z float32) bool
func(a, b int, z float32) (bool)
func(prefix string, values ...int)
func(a, b int, z float64, opt ...interface{}) (success bool)
func(int, int, float64) (float64, *[]int)
func(n int) func(p *T)

Interface types

An interface type defines a type set. A variable of interface type can store a value of any
type that is in the type set of the interface. Such a type is said to implement the interface.
The value of an uninitialized variable of interface type is nil.

InterfaceType = "interface" "{" { InterfaceElem ";" } "}" .

InterfaceElem = MethodElem | TypeElem .
MethodElem = MethodName Signature .
MethodName = identifier .
TypeElem = TypeTerm { "|" TypeTerm } .
TypeTerm = Type | UnderlyingType .
UnderlyingType = "~" Type .

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An interface type is specified by a list of interface elements. An interface element is either a

method or a type element, where a type element is a union of one or more type terms. A
type term is either a single type or a single underlying type.

Basic interfaces

In its most basic form an interface specifies a (possibly empty) list of methods. The type set
defined by such an interface is the set of types which implement all of those methods, and
the corresponding method set consists exactly of the methods specified by the interface.
Interfaces whose type sets can be defined entirely by a list of methods are called basic
interfaces.

// A simple File interface.

interface {
Read([]byte) (int, error)
Write([]byte) (int, error)
Close() error
}

The name of each explicitly specified method must be unique and not blank.

interface {
String() string
String() string // illegal: String not unique
_(x int) // illegal: method must have non-blank name
}

More than one type may implement an interface. For instance, if two types S1 and S2 have
the method set

func (p T) Read(p []byte) (n int, err error)

func (p T) Write(p []byte) (n int, err error)
func (p T) Close() error

(where T stands for either S1 or S2) then the File interface is implemented by both S1 and
S2, regardless of what other methods S1 and S2 may have or share.

Every type that is a member of the type set of an interface implements that interface. Any
given type may implement several distinct interfaces. For instance, all types implement the
empty interface which stands for the set of all (non-interface) types:

interface{}

For convenience, the predeclared type any is an alias for the empty interface. [Go 1.18]

Similarly, consider this interface specification, which appears within a type declaration to
define an interface called Locker:

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type Locker interface {

Lock()
Unlock()
}

If S1 and S2 also implement

func (p T) Lock() { … }
func (p T) Unlock() { … }

they implement the Locker interface as well as the File interface.

Embedded interfaces

In a slightly more general form an interface T may use a (possibly qualified) interface type
name E as an interface element. This is called embedding interface E in T [Go 1.14]. The
type set of T is the intersection of the type sets defined by T's explicitly declared methods
and the type sets of T’s embedded interfaces. In other words, the type set of T is the set of
all types that implement all the explicitly declared methods of T and also all the methods of
E [Go 1.18].

type Reader interface {

Read(p []byte) (n int, err error)
Close() error
}

type Writer interface {

Write(p []byte) (n int, err error)
Close() error
}

// ReadWriter's methods are Read, Write, and Close.

type ReadWriter interface {
Reader // includes methods of Reader in ReadWriter's method set
Writer // includes methods of Writer in ReadWriter's method set
}

When embedding interfaces, methods with the same names must have identical signatures.

type ReadCloser interface {

Reader // includes methods of Reader in ReadCloser's method set
Close() // illegal: signatures of Reader.Close and Close are different
}

General interfaces

In their most general form, an interface element may also be an arbitrary type term T, or a
term of the form ~T specifying the underlying type T, or a union of terms t1|t2|…|tn [Go
1.18]. Together with method specifications, these elements enable the precise definition of

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an interface's type set as follows:

• The type set of the empty interface is the set of all non-interface types.
• The type set of a non-empty interface is the intersection of the type sets of its
interface elements.
• The type set of a method specification is the set of all non-interface types whose
method sets include that method.
• The type set of a non-interface type term is the set consisting of just that type.
• The type set of a term of the form ~T is the set of all types whose underlying type is T.
• The type set of a union of terms t1|t2|…|tn is the union of the type sets of the
terms.

The quantification "the set of all non-interface types" refers not just to all (non-interface)
types declared in the program at hand, but all possible types in all possible programs, and
hence is infinite. Similarly, given the set of all non-interface types that implement a
particular method, the intersection of the method sets of those types will contain exactly that
method, even if all types in the program at hand always pair that method with another
method.

By construction, an interface's type set never contains an interface type.

// An interface representing only the type int.

interface {
int
}

// An interface representing all types with underlying type int.

interface {
~int
}

// An interface representing all types with underlying type int that implement the Strin
interface {
~int
String() string
}

// An interface representing an empty type set: there is no type that is both an int and
interface {
int
string
}

In a term of the form ~T, the underlying type of T must be itself, and T cannot be an
interface.

type MyInt int

interface {
~[]byte // the underlying type of []byte is itself

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~MyInt // illegal: the underlying type of MyInt is not MyInt

~error // illegal: error is an interface
}

Union elements denote unions of type sets:

// The Float interface represents all floating-point types

// (including any named types whose underlying types are
// either float32 or float64).
type Float interface {
~float32 | ~float64
}

The type T in a term of the form T or ~T cannot be a type parameter, and the type sets of all
non-interface terms must be pairwise disjoint (the pairwise intersection of the type sets must
be empty). Given a type parameter P:

interface {
P // illegal: P is a type parameter
int | ~P // illegal: P is a type parameter
~int | MyInt // illegal: the type sets for ~int and MyInt are not disjoint (
float32 | Float // overlapping type sets but Float is an interface
}

Implementation restriction: A union (with more than one term) cannot contain the
predeclared identifier comparable or interfaces that specify methods, or embed
comparable or interfaces that specify methods.

Interfaces that are not basic may only be used as type constraints, or as elements of other
interfaces used as constraints. They cannot be the types of values or variables, or
components of other, non-interface types.

var x Float // illegal: Float is not a basic interface

var x interface{} = Float(nil) // illegal

type Floatish struct {

f Float // illegal
}

An interface type T may not embed a type element that is, contains, or embeds T, directly
or indirectly.

// illegal: Bad may not embed itself

type Bad interface {
Bad
}

// illegal: Bad1 may not embed itself using Bad2

type Bad1 interface {

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Bad2
}
type Bad2 interface {
Bad1
}

// illegal: Bad3 may not embed a union containing Bad3

type Bad3 interface {
~int | ~string | Bad3
}

// illegal: Bad4 may not embed an array containing Bad4 as element type
type Bad4 interface {
[10]Bad4
}

Implementing an interface

A type T implements an interface I if

• T is not an interface and is an element of the type set of I; or

• T is an interface and the type set of T is a subset of the type set of I.

A value of type T implements an interface if T implements the interface.

Map types

A map is an unordered group of elements of one type, called the element type, indexed by
a set of unique keys of another type, called the key type. The value of an uninitialized map
is nil.

MapType = "map" "[" KeyType "]" ElementType .

KeyType = Type .

The comparison operators == and != must be fully defined for operands of the key type;
thus the key type must not be a function, map, or slice. If the key type is an interface type,
these comparison operators must be defined for the dynamic key values; failure will cause a
run-time panic.

map[string]int
map[*T]struct{ x, y float64 }
map[string]interface{}

The number of map elements is called its length. For a map m, it can be discovered using
the built-in function len and may change during execution. Elements may be added during
execution using assignments and retrieved with index expressions; they may be removed
with the delete and clear built-in function.

A new, empty map value is made using the built-in function make, which takes the map type

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and an optional capacity hint as arguments:

make(map[string]int)
make(map[string]int, 100)

The initial capacity does not bound its size: maps grow to accommodate the number of
items stored in them, with the exception of nil maps. A nil map is equivalent to an empty
map except that no elements may be added.

Channel types

A channel provides a mechanism for concurrently executing functions to communicate by

sending and receiving values of a specified element type. The value of an uninitialized
channel is nil.

ChannelType = ( "chan" | "chan" "<-" | "<-" "chan" ) ElementType .

The optional <- operator specifies the channel direction, send or receive. If a direction is
given, the channel is directional, otherwise it is bidirectional. A channel may be constrained
only to send or only to receive by assignment or explicit conversion.

chan T // can be used to send and receive values of type T

chan<- float64 // can only be used to send float64s
<-chan int // can only be used to receive ints

The <- operator associates with the leftmost chan possible:

chan<- chan int // same as chan<- (chan int)

chan<- <-chan int // same as chan<- (<-chan int)
<-chan <-chan int // same as <-chan (<-chan int)
chan (<-chan int)

A new, initialized channel value can be made using the built-in function make, which takes
the channel type and an optional capacity as arguments:

make(chan int, 100)

The capacity, in number of elements, sets the size of the buffer in the channel. If the
capacity is zero or absent, the channel is unbuffered and communication succeeds only
when both a sender and receiver are ready. Otherwise, the channel is buffered and
communication succeeds without blocking if the buffer is not full (sends) or not empty
(receives). A nil channel is never ready for communication.

A channel may be closed with the built-in function close. The multi-valued assignment
form of the receive operator reports whether a received value was sent before the channel
was closed.

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A single channel may be used in send statements, receive operations, and calls to the built-
in functions cap and len by any number of goroutines without further synchronization.
Channels act as first-in-first-out queues. For example, if one goroutine sends values on a
channel and a second goroutine receives them, the values are received in the order sent.

Properties of types and values

Representation of values

Values of predeclared types (see below for the interfaces any and error), arrays, and
structs are self-contained: Each such value contains a complete copy of all its data, and
variables of such types store the entire value. For instance, an array variable provides the
storage (the variables) for all elements of the array. The respective zero values are specific
to the value's types; they are never nil.

Non-nil pointer, function, slice, map, and channel values contain references to underlying
data which may be shared by multiple values:

• A pointer value is a reference to the variable holding the pointer base type value.
• A function value contains references to the (possibly anonymous) function and
enclosed variables.
• A slice value contains the slice length, capacity, and a reference to its underlying
array.
• A map or channel value is a reference to the implementation-specific data structure of
the map or channel.

An interface value may be self-contained or contain references to underlying data

depending on the interface's dynamic type. The predeclared identifier nil is the zero value
for types whose values can contain references.

When multiple values share underlying data, changing one value may change another. For
instance, changing an element of a slice will change that element in the underlying array for
all slices that share the array.

Underlying types

Each type T has an underlying type: If T is one of the predeclared boolean, numeric, or
string types, or a type literal, the corresponding underlying type is T itself. Otherwise, T's
underlying type is the underlying type of the type to which T refers in its declaration. For a
type parameter that is the underlying type of its type constraint, which is always an
interface.

type (
A1 = string
A2 = A1
)

type (

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B1 string
B2 B1
B3 []B1
B4 B3
)

func f[P any](x P) { … }

The underlying type of string, A1, A2, B1, and B2 is string. The underlying type of
[]B1, B3, and B4 is []B1. The underlying type of P is interface{}.

Core types

Each non-interface type T has a core type, which is the same as the underlying type of T.

An interface T has a core type if one of the following conditions is satisfied:

1. There is a single type U which is the underlying type of all types in the type set of T; or
2. the type set of T contains only channel types with identical element type E, and all
directional channels have the same direction.

No other interfaces have a core type.

The core type of an interface is, depending on the condition that is satisfied, either:

1. the type U; or
2. the type chan E if T contains only bidirectional channels, or the type chan<- E or <-
chan E depending on the direction of the directional channels present.

By definition, a core type is never a defined type, type parameter, or interface type.

Examples of interfaces with core types:

type Celsius float32

type Kelvin float32

interface{ int } // int

interface{ Celsius|Kelvin } // float32
interface{ ~chan int } // chan int
interface{ ~chan int|~chan<- int } // chan<- int
interface{ ~[]*data; String() string } // []*data

Examples of interfaces without core types:

interface{} // no single underlying type

interface{ Celsius|float64 } // no single underlying type
interface{ chan int | chan<- string } // channels have different element types
interface{ <-chan int | chan<- int } // directional channels have different directi

Some operations (slice expressions, append and copy) rely on a slightly more loose form

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of core types which accept byte slices and strings. Specifically, if there are exactly two
types, []byte and string, which are the underlying types of all types in the type set of
interface T, the core type of T is called bytestring.

Examples of interfaces with bytestring core types:

interface{ int } // int (same as ordinary core type)

interface{ []byte | string } // bytestring
interface{ ~[]byte | myString } // bytestring

Note that bytestring is not a real type; it cannot be used to declare variables or compose
other types. It exists solely to describe the behavior of some operations that read from a
sequence of bytes, which may be a byte slice or a string.

Type identity

Two types are either identical or different.

A named type is always different from any other type. Otherwise, two types are identical if
their underlying type literals are structurally equivalent; that is, they have the same literal
structure and corresponding components have identical types. In detail:

• Two array types are identical if they have identical element types and the same array
length.
• Two slice types are identical if they have identical element types.
• Two struct types are identical if they have the same sequence of fields, and if
corresponding pairs of fields have the same names, identical types, and identical tags,
and are either both embedded or both not embedded. Non-exported field names from
different packages are always different.
• Two pointer types are identical if they have identical base types.
• Two function types are identical if they have the same number of parameters and
result values, corresponding parameter and result types are identical, and either both
functions are variadic or neither is. Parameter and result names are not required to
match.
• Two interface types are identical if they define the same type set.
• Two map types are identical if they have identical key and element types.
• Two channel types are identical if they have identical element types and the same
direction.
• Two instantiated types are identical if their defined types and all type arguments are
identical.

Given the declarations

type (
A0 = []string
A1 = A0
A2 = struct{ a, b int }
A3 = int

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A4 = func(A3, float64) *A0

A5 = func(x int, _ float64) *[]string

B0 A0
B1 []string
B2 struct{ a, b int }
B3 struct{ a, c int }
B4 func(int, float64) *B0
B5 func(x int, y float64) *A1

C0 = B0
D0[P1, P2 any] struct{ x P1; y P2 }
E0 = D0[int, string]
)

these types are identical:

A0, A1, and []string

A2 and struct{ a, b int }
A3 and int
A4, func(int, float64) *[]string, and A5

B0 and C0
D0[int, string] and E0
[]int and []int
struct{ a, b *B5 } and struct{ a, b *B5 }
func(x int, y float64) *[]string, func(int, float64) (result *[]string), and A5

B0 and B1 are different because they are new types created by distinct type definitions;
func(int, float64) *B0 and func(x int, y float64) *[]string are different
because B0 is different from []string; and P1 and P2 are different because they are
different type parameters. D0[int, string] and struct{ x int; y string } are
different because the former is an instantiated defined type while the latter is a type literal
(but they are still assignable).

Assignability

A value x of type V is assignable to a variable of type T ("x is assignable to T") if one of the
following conditions applies:

• V and T are identical.

• V and T have identical underlying types but are not type parameters and at least one
of V or T is not a named type.
• V and T are channel types with identical element types, V is a bidirectional channel,
and at least one of V or T is not a named type.
• T is an interface type, but not a type parameter, and x implements T.
• x is the predeclared identifier nil and T is a pointer, function, slice, map, channel, or
interface type, but not a type parameter.
• x is an untyped constant representable by a value of type T.

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Additionally, if x's type V or T are type parameters, x is assignable to a variable of type T if

one of the following conditions applies:

• x is the predeclared identifier nil, T is a type parameter, and x is assignable to each

type in T's type set.
• V is not a named type, T is a type parameter, and x is assignable to each type in T's
type set.
• V is a type parameter and T is not a named type, and values of each type in V's type
set are assignable to T.

Representability

A constant x is representable by a value of type T, where T is not a type parameter, if one

of the following conditions applies:

• x is in the set of values determined by T.

• T is a floating-point type and x can be rounded to T's precision without overflow.
Rounding uses IEEE 754 round-to-even rules but with an IEEE negative zero further
simplified to an unsigned zero. Note that constant values never result in an IEEE
negative zero, NaN, or infinity.
• T is a complex type, and x's components real(x) and imag(x) are representable
by values of T's component type (float32 or float64).

If T is a type parameter, x is representable by a value of type T if x is representable by a

value of each type in T's type set.

x T x is representable by a value of T because

'a' byte 97 is in the set of byte values

97 rune rune is an alias for int32, and 97 is in the set of 32-b
"foo" string "foo" is in the set of string values
1024 int16 1024 is in the set of 16-bit integers
42.0 byte 42 is in the set of unsigned 8-bit integers
1e10 uint64 10000000000 is in the set of unsigned 64-bit integers
2.718281828459045 float32 2.718281828459045 rounds to 2.7182817 which is in the se
-1e-1000 float64 -1e-1000 rounds to IEEE -0.0 which is further simplified
0i int 0 is an integer value
(42 + 0i) float32 42.0 (with zero imaginary part) is in the set of float32

x T x is not representable by a value of T because

0 bool 0 is not in the set of boolean values

'a' string 'a' is a rune, it is not in the set of string values
1024 byte 1024 is not in the set of unsigned 8-bit integers
-1 uint16 -1 is not in the set of unsigned 16-bit integers
1.1 int 1.1 is not an integer value
42i float32 (0 + 42i) is not in the set of float32 values
1e1000 float64 1e1000 overflows to IEEE +Inf after rounding

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Method sets

The method set of a type determines the methods that can be called on an operand of that
type. Every type has a (possibly empty) method set associated with it:

• The method set of a defined type T consists of all methods declared with receiver type
T.
• The method set of a pointer to a defined type T (where T is neither a pointer nor an
interface) is the set of all methods declared with receiver *T or T.
• The method set of an interface type is the intersection of the method sets of each type
in the interface's type set (the resulting method set is usually just the set of declared
methods in the interface).

Further rules apply to structs (and pointer to structs) containing embedded fields, as
described in the section on struct types. Any other type has an empty method set.

In a method set, each method must have a unique non-blank method name.

Blocks
A block is a possibly empty sequence of declarations and statements within matching brace
brackets.

Block = "{" StatementList "}" .

StatementList = { Statement ";" } .

In addition to explicit blocks in the source code, there are implicit blocks:

1. The universe block encompasses all Go source text.

2. Each package has a package block containing all Go source text for that package.
3. Each file has a file block containing all Go source text in that file.
4. Each "if", "for", and "switch" statement is considered to be in its own implicit block.
5. Each clause in a "switch" or "select" statement acts as an implicit block.

Blocks nest and influence scoping.

Declarations and scope

A declaration binds a non-blank identifier to a constant, type, type parameter, variable,
function, label, or package. Every identifier in a program must be declared. No identifier
may be declared twice in the same block, and no identifier may be declared in both the file
and package block.

The blank identifier may be used like any other identifier in a declaration, but it does not
introduce a binding and thus is not declared. In the package block, the identifier init may
only be used for init function declarations, and like the blank identifier it does not
introduce a new binding.

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Declaration = ConstDecl | TypeDecl | VarDecl .

TopLevelDecl = Declaration | FunctionDecl | MethodDecl .

The scope of a declared identifier is the extent of source text in which the identifier denotes
the specified constant, type, variable, function, label, or package.

Go is lexically scoped using blocks:

1. The scope of a predeclared identifier is the universe block.

2. The scope of an identifier denoting a constant, type, variable, or function (but not
method) declared at top level (outside any function) is the package block.
3. The scope of the package name of an imported package is the file block of the file
containing the import declaration.
4. The scope of an identifier denoting a method receiver, function parameter, or result
variable is the function body.
5. The scope of an identifier denoting a type parameter of a function or declared by a
method receiver begins after the name of the function and ends at the end of the
function body.
6. The scope of an identifier denoting a type parameter of a type begins after the name
of the type and ends at the end of the TypeSpec.
7. The scope of a constant or variable identifier declared inside a function begins at the
end of the ConstSpec or VarSpec (ShortVarDecl for short variable declarations) and
ends at the end of the innermost containing block.
8. The scope of a type identifier declared inside a function begins at the identifier in the
TypeSpec and ends at the end of the innermost containing block.

An identifier declared in a block may be redeclared in an inner block. While the identifier of
the inner declaration is in scope, it denotes the entity declared by the inner declaration.

The package clause is not a declaration; the package name does not appear in any scope.
Its purpose is to identify the files belonging to the same package and to specify the default
package name for import declarations.

Label scopes

Labels are declared by labeled statements and are used in the "break", "continue", and
"goto" statements. It is illegal to define a label that is never used. In contrast to other
identifiers, labels are not block scoped and do not conflict with identifiers that are not labels.
The scope of a label is the body of the function in which it is declared and excludes the
body of any nested function.

Blank identifier

The blank identifier is represented by the underscore character _. It serves as an

anonymous placeholder instead of a regular (non-blank) identifier and has special meaning
in declarations, as an operand, and in assignment statements.

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Predeclared identifiers

The following identifiers are implicitly declared in the universe block [Go 1.18] [Go 1.21]:

Types:
any bool byte comparable
complex64 complex128 error float32 float64
int int8 int16 int32 int64 rune string
uint uint8 uint16 uint32 uint64 uintptr

Constants:
true false iota

Zero value:
nil

Functions:
append cap clear close complex copy delete imag len
make max min new panic print println real recover

Exported identifiers

An identifier may be exported to permit access to it from another package. An identifier is

exported if both:

1. the first character of the identifier's name is a Unicode uppercase letter (Unicode
character category Lu); and
2. the identifier is declared in the package block or it is a field name or method name.

All other identifiers are not exported.

Uniqueness of identifiers

Given a set of identifiers, an identifier is called unique if it is different from every other in the
set. Two identifiers are different if they are spelled differently, or if they appear in different
packages and are not exported. Otherwise, they are the same.

Constant declarations

A constant declaration binds a list of identifiers (the names of the constants) to the values of
a list of constant expressions. The number of identifiers must be equal to the number of
expressions, and the nth identifier on the left is bound to the value of the nth expression on
the right.

ConstDecl = "const" ( ConstSpec | "(" { ConstSpec ";" } ")" ) .

ConstSpec = IdentifierList [ [ Type ] "=" ExpressionList ] .

IdentifierList = identifier { "," identifier } .

ExpressionList = Expression { "," Expression } .

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If the type is present, all constants take the type specified, and the expressions must be
assignable to that type, which must not be a type parameter. If the type is omitted, the
constants take the individual types of the corresponding expressions. If the expression
values are untyped constants, the declared constants remain untyped and the constant
identifiers denote the constant values. For instance, if the expression is a floating-point
literal, the constant identifier denotes a floating-point constant, even if the literal's fractional
part is zero.

const Pi float64 = 3.14159265358979323846

const zero = 0.0 // untyped floating-point constant
const (
size int64 = 1024
eof = -1 // untyped integer constant
)
const a, b, c = 3, 4, "foo" // a = 3, b = 4, c = "foo", untyped integer and string cons
const u, v float32 = 0, 3 // u = 0.0, v = 3.0

Within a parenthesized const declaration list the expression list may be omitted from any
but the first ConstSpec. Such an empty list is equivalent to the textual substitution of the
first preceding non-empty expression list and its type if any. Omitting the list of expressions
is therefore equivalent to repeating the previous list. The number of identifiers must be
equal to the number of expressions in the previous list. Together with the iota constant
generator this mechanism permits light-weight declaration of sequential values:

const (
Sunday = iota
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Partyday
numberOfDays // this constant is not exported
)

Iota

Within a constant declaration, the predeclared identifier iota represents successive

untyped integer constants. Its value is the index of the respective ConstSpec in that
constant declaration, starting at zero. It can be used to construct a set of related constants:

const (
c0 = iota // c0 == 0
c1 = iota // c1 == 1
c2 = iota // c2 == 2
)

const (
a = 1 << iota // a == 1 (iota == 0)

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b = 1 << iota // b == 2 (iota == 1)

c = 3 // c == 3 (iota == 2, unused)
d = 1 << iota // d == 8 (iota == 3)
)

const (
u = iota * 42 // u == 0 (untyped integer constant)
v float64 = iota * 42 // v == 42.0 (float64 constant)
w = iota * 42 // w == 84 (untyped integer constant)
)

const x = iota // x == 0
const y = iota // y == 0

By definition, multiple uses of iota in the same ConstSpec all have the same value:

const (
bit0, mask0 = 1 << iota, 1<<iota - 1 // bit0 == 1, mask0 == 0 (iota == 0)
bit1, mask1 // bit1 == 2, mask1 == 1 (iota == 1)
_, _ // (iota == 2, unus
bit3, mask3 // bit3 == 8, mask3 == 7 (iota == 3)
)

This last example exploits the implicit repetition of the last non-empty expression list.

Type declarations

A type declaration binds an identifier, the type name, to a type. Type declarations come in
two forms: alias declarations and type definitions.

TypeDecl = "type" ( TypeSpec | "(" { TypeSpec ";" } ")" ) .

TypeSpec = AliasDecl | TypeDef .

Alias declarations

An alias declaration binds an identifier to the given type [Go 1.9].

AliasDecl = identifier [ TypeParameters ] "=" Type .

Within the scope of the identifier, it serves as an alias for the given type.

type (
nodeList = []*Node // nodeList and []*Node are identical types
Polar = polar // Polar and polar denote identical types
)

If the alias declaration specifies type parameters [Go 1.24], the type name denotes a
generic alias. Generic aliases must be instantiated when they are used.

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type set[P comparable] = map[P]bool

In an alias declaration the given type cannot be a type parameter.

type A[P any] = P // illegal: P is a type parameter

Type definitions

A type definition creates a new, distinct type with the same underlying type and operations
as the given type and binds an identifier, the type name, to it.

TypeDef = identifier [ TypeParameters ] Type .

The new type is called a defined type. It is different from any other type, including the type it
is created from.

type (
Point struct{ x, y float64 } // Point and struct{ x, y float64 } are different
polar Point // polar and Point denote different types
)

type TreeNode struct {

left, right *TreeNode
value any
}

type Block interface {

BlockSize() int
Encrypt(src, dst []byte)
Decrypt(src, dst []byte)
}

A defined type may have methods associated with it. It does not inherit any methods bound
to the given type, but the method set of an interface type or of elements of a composite type
remains unchanged:

// A Mutex is a data type with two methods, Lock and Unlock.

type Mutex struct { /* Mutex fields */ }
func (m *Mutex) Lock() { /* Lock implementation */ }
func (m *Mutex) Unlock() { /* Unlock implementation */ }

// NewMutex has the same composition as Mutex but its method set is empty.
type NewMutex Mutex

// The method set of PtrMutex's underlying type *Mutex remains unchanged,

// but the method set of PtrMutex is empty.
type PtrMutex *Mutex

// The method set of *PrintableMutex contains the methods

// Lock and Unlock bound to its embedded field Mutex.

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type PrintableMutex struct {

Mutex
}

// MyBlock is an interface type that has the same method set as Block.
type MyBlock Block

Type definitions may be used to define different boolean, numeric, or string types and
associate methods with them:

type TimeZone int

const (
EST TimeZone = -(5 + iota)
CST
MST
PST
)

func (tz TimeZone) String() string {

return fmt.Sprintf("GMT%+dh", tz)
}

If the type definition specifies type parameters, the type name denotes a generic type.
Generic types must be instantiated when they are used.

type List[T any] struct {

next *List[T]
value T
}

In a type definition the given type cannot be a type parameter.

type T[P any] P // illegal: P is a type parameter

func f[T any]() {

type L T // illegal: T is a type parameter declared by the enclosing function
}

A generic type may also have methods associated with it. In this case, the method receivers
must declare the same number of type parameters as present in the generic type definition.

// The method Len returns the number of elements in the linked list l.
func (l *List[T]) Len() int { … }

Type parameter declarations

A type parameter list declares the type parameters of a generic function or type declaration.
The type parameter list looks like an ordinary function parameter list except that the type
parameter names must all be present and the list is enclosed in square brackets rather than

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parentheses [Go 1.18].

TypeParameters = "[" TypeParamList [ "," ] "]" .

TypeParamList = TypeParamDecl { "," TypeParamDecl } .
TypeParamDecl = IdentifierList TypeConstraint .

All non-blank names in the list must be unique. Each name declares a type parameter,
which is a new and different named type that acts as a placeholder for an (as of yet)
unknown type in the declaration. The type parameter is replaced with a type argument upon
instantiation of the generic function or type.

[P any]
[S interface{ ~[]byte|string }]
[S ~[]E, E any]
[P Constraint[int]]
[_ any]

Just as each ordinary function parameter has a parameter type, each type parameter has a
corresponding (meta-)type which is called its type constraint.

A parsing ambiguity arises when the type parameter list for a generic type declares a single
type parameter P with a constraint C such that the text P C forms a valid expression:

type T[P *C] …

type T[P (C)] …
type T[P *C|Q] …
…

In these rare cases, the type parameter list is indistinguishable from an expression and the
type declaration is parsed as an array type declaration. To resolve the ambiguity, embed
the constraint in an interface or use a trailing comma:

type T[P interface{*C}] …

type T[P *C,] …

Type parameters may also be declared by the receiver specification of a method

declaration associated with a generic type.

Within a type parameter list of a generic type T, a type constraint may not (directly, or
indirectly through the type parameter list of another generic type) refer to T.

type T1[P T1[P]] … // illegal: T1 refers to itself

type T2[P interface{ T2[int] }] … // illegal: T2 refers to itself
type T3[P interface{ m(T3[int])}] … // illegal: T3 refers to itself
type T4[P T5[P]] … // illegal: T4 refers to T5 and
type T5[P T4[P]] … // T5 refers to T4

type T6[P int] struct{ f *T6[P] } // ok: reference to T6 is not in type parameter li

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Type constraints

A type constraint is an interface that defines the set of permissible type arguments for the
respective type parameter and controls the operations supported by values of that type
parameter [Go 1.18].

TypeConstraint = TypeElem .

If the constraint is an interface literal of the form interface{E} where E is an embedded

type element (not a method), in a type parameter list the enclosing interface{ … } may
be omitted for convenience:

[T []P] // = [T interface{[]P}]
[T ~int] // = [T interface{~int}]
[T int|string] // = [T interface{int|string}]
type Constraint ~int // illegal: ~int is not in a type parameter list

The predeclared interface type comparable denotes the set of all non-interface types that
are strictly comparable [Go 1.18].

Even though interfaces that are not type parameters are comparable, they are not strictly
comparable and therefore they do not implement comparable. However, they satisfy
comparable.

int // implements comparable (int is strictly comparable)

[]byte // does not implement comparable (slices cannot be compared
interface{} // does not implement comparable (see above)
interface{ ~int | ~string } // type parameter only: implements comparable (int, string
interface{ comparable } // type parameter only: implements comparable (comparable i
interface{ ~int | ~[]byte } // type parameter only: does not implement comparable (slic
interface{ ~struct{ any } } // type parameter only: does not implement comparable (fiel

The comparable interface and interfaces that (directly or indirectly) embed comparable
may only be used as type constraints. They cannot be the types of values or variables, or
components of other, non-interface types.

Satisfying a type constraint

A type argument T satisfies a type constraint C if T is an element of the type set defined by
C; in other words, if T implements C. As an exception, a strictly comparable type constraint
may also be satisfied by a comparable (not necessarily strictly comparable) type argument
[Go 1.20]. More precisely:

A type T satisfies a constraint C if

• T implements C; or
• C can be written in the form interface{ comparable; E }, where E is a basic
interface and T is comparable and implements E.

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type argument type constraint // constraint satisfaction

int interface{ ~int } // satisfied: int implements interface

string comparable // satisfied: string implements compar
[]byte comparable // not satisfied: slices are not compa
any interface{ comparable; int } // not satisfied: any does not impleme
any comparable // satisfied: any is comparable and im
struct{f any} comparable // satisfied: struct{f any} is compara
any interface{ comparable; m() } // not satisfied: any does not impleme
interface{ m() } interface{ comparable; m() } // satisfied: interface{ m() } is comp

Because of the exception in the constraint satisfaction rule, comparing operands of type
parameter type may panic at run-time (even though comparable type parameters are
always strictly comparable).

Variable declarations

A variable declaration creates one or more variables, binds corresponding identifiers to

them, and gives each a type and an initial value.

VarDecl = "var" ( VarSpec | "(" { VarSpec ";" } ")" ) .

VarSpec = IdentifierList ( Type [ "=" ExpressionList ] | "=" ExpressionList ) .

var i int
var U, V, W float64
var k = 0
var x, y float32 = -1, -2
var (
i int
u, v, s = 2.0, 3.0, "bar"
)
var re, im = complexSqrt(-1)
var _, found = entries[name] // map lookup; only interested in "found"

If a list of expressions is given, the variables are initialized with the expressions following
the rules for assignment statements. Otherwise, each variable is initialized to its zero value.

If a type is present, each variable is given that type. Otherwise, each variable is given the
type of the corresponding initialization value in the assignment. If that value is an untyped
constant, it is first implicitly converted to its default type; if it is an untyped boolean value, it
is first implicitly converted to type bool. The predeclared identifier nil cannot be used to
initialize a variable with no explicit type.

var d = math.Sin(0.5) // d is float64

var i = 42 // i is int
var t, ok = x.(T) // t is T, ok is bool
var n = nil // illegal

Implementation restriction: A compiler may make it illegal to declare a variable inside a

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function body if the variable is never used.

Short variable declarations

A short variable declaration uses the syntax:

ShortVarDecl = IdentifierList ":=" ExpressionList .

It is shorthand for a regular variable declaration with initializer expressions but no types:

"var" IdentifierList "=" ExpressionList .

i, j := 0, 10
f := func() int { return 7 }
ch := make(chan int)
r, w, _ := os.Pipe() // os.Pipe() returns a connected pair of Files and an error, if an
_, y, _ := coord(p) // coord() returns three values; only interested in y coordinate

Unlike regular variable declarations, a short variable declaration may redeclare variables
provided they were originally declared earlier in the same block (or the parameter lists if the
block is the function body) with the same type, and at least one of the non-blank variables is
new. As a consequence, redeclaration can only appear in a multi-variable short declaration.
Redeclaration does not introduce a new variable; it just assigns a new value to the original.
The non-blank variable names on the left side of := must be unique.

field1, offset := nextField(str, 0)

field2, offset := nextField(str, offset) // redeclares offset
x, y, x := 1, 2, 3 // illegal: x repeated on left side of :=

Short variable declarations may appear only inside functions. In some contexts such as the
initializers for "if", "for", or "switch" statements, they can be used to declare local temporary
variables.

Function declarations

A function declaration binds an identifier, the function name, to a function.

FunctionDecl = "func" FunctionName [ TypeParameters ] Signature [ FunctionBody ] .

FunctionName = identifier .
FunctionBody = Block .

If the function's signature declares result parameters, the function body's statement list
must end in a terminating statement.

func IndexRune(s string, r rune) int {

for i, c := range s {
if c == r {
return i

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}
}
// invalid: missing return statement
}

If the function declaration specifies type parameters, the function name denotes a generic
function. A generic function must be instantiated before it can be called or used as a value.

func min[T ~int|~float64](x, y T) T {

if x < y {
return x
}
return y
}

A function declaration without type parameters may omit the body. Such a declaration
provides the signature for a function implemented outside Go, such as an assembly routine.

func flushICache(begin, end uintptr) // implemented externally

Method declarations

A method is a function with a receiver. A method declaration binds an identifier, the method
name, to a method, and associates the method with the receiver's base type.

MethodDecl = "func" Receiver MethodName Signature [ FunctionBody ] .

Receiver = Parameters .

The receiver is specified via an extra parameter section preceding the method name. That
parameter section must declare a single non-variadic parameter, the receiver. Its type must
be a defined type T or a pointer to a defined type T, possibly followed by a list of type
parameter names [P1, P2, …] enclosed in square brackets. T is called the receiver base
type. A receiver base type cannot be a pointer or interface type and it must be defined in
the same package as the method. The method is said to be bound to its receiver base type
and the method name is visible only within selectors for type T or *T.

A non-blank receiver identifier must be unique in the method signature. If the receiver's
value is not referenced inside the body of the method, its identifier may be omitted in the
declaration. The same applies in general to parameters of functions and methods.

For a base type, the non-blank names of methods bound to it must be unique. If the base
type is a struct type, the non-blank method and field names must be distinct.

Given defined type Point the declarations

func (p *Point) Length() float64 {

return math.Sqrt(p.x * p.x + p.y * p.y)
}

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func (p *Point) Scale(factor float64) {

p.x *= factor
p.y *= factor
}

bind the methods Length and Scale, with receiver type *Point, to the base type Point.

If the receiver base type is a generic type, the receiver specification must declare
corresponding type parameters for the method to use. This makes the receiver type
parameters available to the method. Syntactically, this type parameter declaration looks like
an instantiation of the receiver base type: the type arguments must be identifiers denoting
the type parameters being declared, one for each type parameter of the receiver base type.
The type parameter names do not need to match their corresponding parameter names in
the receiver base type definition, and all non-blank parameter names must be unique in the
receiver parameter section and the method signature. The receiver type parameter
constraints are implied by the receiver base type definition: corresponding type parameters
have corresponding constraints.

type Pair[A, B any] struct {

a A
b B
}

func (p Pair[A, B]) Swap() Pair[B, A] { … } // receiver declares A, B

func (p Pair[First, _]) First() First { … } // receiver declares First, corresponds to

If the receiver type is denoted by (a pointer to) an alias, the alias must not be generic and it
must not denote an instantiated generic type, neither directly nor indirectly via another alias,
and irrespective of pointer indirections.

type GPoint[P any] = Point

type HPoint = *GPoint[int]
type IPair = Pair[int, int]

func (*GPoint[P]) Draw(P) { … } // illegal: alias must not be generic

func (HPoint) Draw(P) { … } // illegal: alias must not denote instantiated type G
func (*IPair) Second() int { … } // illegal: alias must not denote instantiated type P

Expressions
An expression specifies the computation of a value by applying operators and functions to
operands.

Operands

Operands denote the elementary values in an expression. An operand may be a literal, a

(possibly qualified) non-blank identifier denoting a constant, variable, or function, or a
parenthesized expression.

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Operand = Literal | OperandName [ TypeArgs ] | "(" Expression ")" .

Literal = BasicLit | CompositeLit | FunctionLit .
BasicLit = int_lit | float_lit | imaginary_lit | rune_lit | string_lit .
OperandName = identifier | QualifiedIdent .

An operand name denoting a generic function may be followed by a list of type arguments;
the resulting operand is an instantiated function.

The blank identifier may appear as an operand only on the left-hand side of an assignment
statement.

Implementation restriction: A compiler need not report an error if an operand's type is a type
parameter with an empty type set. Functions with such type parameters cannot be
instantiated; any attempt will lead to an error at the instantiation site.

Qualified identifiers

A qualified identifier is an identifier qualified with a package name prefix. Both the package
name and the identifier must not be blank.

QualifiedIdent = PackageName "." identifier .

A qualified identifier accesses an identifier in a different package, which must be imported.

The identifier must be exported and declared in the package block of that package.

math.Sin // denotes the Sin function in package math

Composite literals

Composite literals construct new composite values each time they are evaluated. They
consist of the type of the literal followed by a brace-bound list of elements. Each element
may optionally be preceded by a corresponding key.

CompositeLit = LiteralType LiteralValue .

LiteralType = StructType | ArrayType | "[" "..." "]" ElementType |
SliceType | MapType | TypeName [ TypeArgs ] .
LiteralValue = "{" [ ElementList [ "," ] ] "}" .
ElementList = KeyedElement { "," KeyedElement } .
KeyedElement = [ Key ":" ] Element .
Key = FieldName | Expression | LiteralValue .
FieldName = identifier .
Element = Expression | LiteralValue .

The LiteralType's core type T must be a struct, array, slice, or map type (the syntax
enforces this constraint except when the type is given as a TypeName). The types of the
elements and keys must be assignable to the respective field, element, and key types of
type T; there is no additional conversion. The key is interpreted as a field name for struct
literals, an index for array and slice literals, and a key for map literals. For map literals, all

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elements must have a key. It is an error to specify multiple elements with the same field
name or constant key value. For non-constant map keys, see the section on evaluation
order.

For struct literals the following rules apply:

• A key must be a field name declared in the struct type.

• An element list that does not contain any keys must list an element for each struct
field in the order in which the fields are declared.
• If any element has a key, every element must have a key.
• An element list that contains keys does not need to have an element for each struct
field. Omitted fields get the zero value for that field.
• A literal may omit the element list; such a literal evaluates to the zero value for its
type.
• It is an error to specify an element for a non-exported field of a struct belonging to a
different package.

Given the declarations

type Point3D struct { x, y, z float64 }

type Line struct { p, q Point3D }

one may write

origin := Point3D{} // zero value for Point3D

line := Line{origin, Point3D{y: -4, z: 12.3}} // zero value for line.q.x

For array and slice literals the following rules apply:

• Each element has an associated integer index marking its position in the array.
• An element with a key uses the key as its index. The key must be a non-negative
constant representable by a value of type int; and if it is typed it must be of integer
type.
• An element without a key uses the previous element's index plus one. If the first
element has no key, its index is zero.

Taking the address of a composite literal generates a pointer to a unique variable initialized
with the literal's value.

var pointer *Point3D = &Point3D{y: 1000}

Note that the zero value for a slice or map type is not the same as an initialized but empty
value of the same type. Consequently, taking the address of an empty slice or map
composite literal does not have the same effect as allocating a new slice or map value with
new.

p1 := &[]int{} // p1 points to an initialized, empty slice with value []int{} and len

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p2 := new([]int) // p2 points to an uninitialized slice with value nil and length 0

The length of an array literal is the length specified in the literal type. If fewer elements than
the length are provided in the literal, the missing elements are set to the zero value for the
array element type. It is an error to provide elements with index values outside the index
range of the array. The notation ... specifies an array length equal to the maximum
element index plus one.

buffer := [10]string{} // len(buffer) == 10

intSet := [6]int{1, 2, 3, 5} // len(intSet) == 6
days := [...]string{"Sat", "Sun"} // len(days) == 2

A slice literal describes the entire underlying array literal. Thus the length and capacity of a
slice literal are the maximum element index plus one. A slice literal has the form

[]T{x1, x2, … xn}

and is shorthand for a slice operation applied to an array:

tmp := [n]T{x1, x2, … xn}

tmp[0 : n]

Within a composite literal of array, slice, or map type T, elements or map keys that are
themselves composite literals may elide the respective literal type if it is identical to the
element or key type of T. Similarly, elements or keys that are addresses of composite
literals may elide the &T when the element or key type is *T.

[...]Point{{1.5, -3.5}, {0, 0}} // same as [...]Point{Point{1.5, -3.5}, Point{0, 0}}

[][]int{{1, 2, 3}, {4, 5}} // same as [][]int{[]int{1, 2, 3}, []int{4, 5}}
[][]Point{{{0, 1}, {1, 2}}} // same as [][]Point{[]Point{Point{0, 1}, Point{1, 2
map[string]Point{"orig": {0, 0}} // same as map[string]Point{"orig": Point{0, 0}}
map[Point]string{{0, 0}: "orig"} // same as map[Point]string{Point{0, 0}: "orig"}

type PPoint *Point

[2]*Point{{1.5, -3.5}, {}} // same as [2]*Point{&Point{1.5, -3.5}, &Point{}}
[2]PPoint{{1.5, -3.5}, {}} // same as [2]PPoint{PPoint(&Point{1.5, -3.5}), PPoi

A parsing ambiguity arises when a composite literal using the TypeName form of the
LiteralType appears as an operand between the keyword and the opening brace of the
block of an "if", "for", or "switch" statement, and the composite literal is not enclosed in
parentheses, square brackets, or curly braces. In this rare case, the opening brace of the
literal is erroneously parsed as the one introducing the block of statements. To resolve the
ambiguity, the composite literal must appear within parentheses.

if x == (T{a,b,c}[i]) { … }
if (x == T{a,b,c}[i]) { … }

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Examples of valid array, slice, and map literals:

// list of prime numbers

primes := []int{2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 2147483647}

// vowels[ch] is true if ch is a vowel

vowels := [128]bool{'a': true, 'e': true, 'i': true, 'o': true, 'u': true, 'y': true}

// the array [10]float32{-1, 0, 0, 0, -0.1, -0.1, 0, 0, 0, -1}

filter := [10]float32{-1, 4: -0.1, -0.1, 9: -1}

// frequencies in Hz for equal-tempered scale (A4 = 440Hz)

noteFrequency := map[string]float32{
"C0": 16.35, "D0": 18.35, "E0": 20.60, "F0": 21.83,
"G0": 24.50, "A0": 27.50, "B0": 30.87,
}

Function literals

A function literal represents an anonymous function. Function literals cannot declare type
parameters.

FunctionLit = "func" Signature FunctionBody .

func(a, b int, z float64) bool { return a*b < int(z) }

A function literal can be assigned to a variable or invoked directly.

f := func(x, y int) int { return x + y }

func(ch chan int) { ch <- ACK }(replyChan)

Function literals are closures: they may refer to variables defined in a surrounding function.
Those variables are then shared between the surrounding function and the function literal,
and they survive as long as they are accessible.

Primary expressions

Primary expressions are the operands for unary and binary expressions.

PrimaryExpr = Operand |
Conversion |
MethodExpr |
PrimaryExpr Selector |
PrimaryExpr Index |
PrimaryExpr Slice |
PrimaryExpr TypeAssertion |
PrimaryExpr Arguments .

Selector = "." identifier .

Index = "[" Expression [ "," ] "]" .

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Slice = "[" [ Expression ] ":" [ Expression ] "]" |

"[" [ Expression ] ":" Expression ":" Expression "]" .
TypeAssertion = "." "(" Type ")" .
Arguments = "(" [ ( ExpressionList | Type [ "," ExpressionList ] ) [ "..." ] [ "," ]

x
2
(s + ".txt")
f(3.1415, true)
Point{1, 2}
m["foo"]
s[i : j + 1]
obj.color
f.p[i].x()

Selectors

For a primary expression x that is not a package name, the selector expression

x.f

denotes the field or method f of the value x (or sometimes *x; see below). The identifier f
is called the (field or method) selector; it must not be the blank identifier. The type of the
selector expression is the type of f. If x is a package name, see the section on qualified
identifiers.

A selector f may denote a field or method f of a type T, or it may refer to a field or method
f of a nested embedded field of T. The number of embedded fields traversed to reach f is
called its depth in T. The depth of a field or method f declared in T is zero. The depth of a
field or method f declared in an embedded field A in T is the depth of f in A plus one.

The following rules apply to selectors:

1. For a value x of type T or *T where T is not a pointer or interface type, x.f denotes
the field or method at the shallowest depth in T where there is such an f. If there is
not exactly one f with shallowest depth, the selector expression is illegal.
2. For a value x of type I where I is an interface type, x.f denotes the actual method
with name f of the dynamic value of x. If there is no method with name f in the
method set of I, the selector expression is illegal.
3. As an exception, if the type of x is a defined pointer type and (*x).f is a valid
selector expression denoting a field (but not a method), x.f is shorthand for (*x).f.
4. In all other cases, x.f is illegal.
5. If x is of pointer type and has the value nil and x.f denotes a struct field, assigning
to or evaluating x.f causes a run-time panic.
6. If x is of interface type and has the value nil, calling or evaluating the method x.f
causes a run-time panic.

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For example, given the declarations:

type T0 struct {
x int
}

func (*T0) M0()

type T1 struct {
y int
}

func (T1) M1()

type T2 struct {
z int
T1
*T0
}

func (*T2) M2()

type Q *T2

var t T2 // with t.T0 != nil

var p *T2 // with p != nil and (*p).T0 != nil
var q Q = p

one may write:

t.z // t.z
t.y // t.T1.y
t.x // (*t.T0).x

p.z // (*p).z
p.y // (*p).T1.y
p.x // (*(*p).T0).x

q.x // (*(*q).T0).x (*q).x is a valid field selector

p.M0() // ((*p).T0).M0() M0 expects *T0 receiver

p.M1() // ((*p).T1).M1() M1 expects T1 receiver
p.M2() // p.M2() M2 expects *T2 receiver
t.M2() // (&t).M2() M2 expects *T2 receiver, see section on Calls

but the following is invalid:

q.M0() // (*q).M0 is valid but not a field selector

Method expressions

If M is in the method set of type T, T.M is a function that is callable as a regular function with

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the same arguments as M prefixed by an additional argument that is the receiver of the
method.

MethodExpr = ReceiverType "." MethodName .

ReceiverType = Type .

Consider a struct type T with two methods, Mv, whose receiver is of type T, and Mp, whose
receiver is of type *T.

type T struct {
a int
}
func (tv T) Mv(a int) int { return 0 } // value receiver
func (tp *T) Mp(f float32) float32 { return 1 } // pointer receiver

var t T

The expression

T.Mv

yields a function equivalent to Mv but with an explicit receiver as its first argument; it has
signature

func(tv T, a int) int

That function may be called normally with an explicit receiver, so these five invocations are
equivalent:

t.Mv(7)
T.Mv(t, 7)
(T).Mv(t, 7)
f1 := T.Mv; f1(t, 7)
f2 := (T).Mv; f2(t, 7)

Similarly, the expression

(*T).Mp

yields a function value representing Mp with signature

func(tp *T, f float32) float32

For a method with a value receiver, one can derive a function with an explicit pointer
receiver, so

(*T).Mv

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yields a function value representing Mv with signature

func(tv *T, a int) int

Such a function indirects through the receiver to create a value to pass as the receiver to
the underlying method; the method does not overwrite the value whose address is passed
in the function call.

The final case, a value-receiver function for a pointer-receiver method, is illegal because
pointer-receiver methods are not in the method set of the value type.

Function values derived from methods are called with function call syntax; the receiver is
provided as the first argument to the call. That is, given f := T.Mv, f is invoked as f(t,
7) not t.f(7). To construct a function that binds the receiver, use a function literal or
method value.

It is legal to derive a function value from a method of an interface type. The resulting
function takes an explicit receiver of that interface type.

Method values

If the expression x has static type T and M is in the method set of type T, x.M is called a
method value. The method value x.M is a function value that is callable with the same
arguments as a method call of x.M. The expression x is evaluated and saved during the
evaluation of the method value; the saved copy is then used as the receiver in any calls,
which may be executed later.

type S struct { *T }
type T int
func (t T) M() { print(t) }

t := new(T)
s := S{T: t}
f := t.M // receiver *t is evaluated and stored in f
g := s.M // receiver *(s.T) is evaluated and stored in g
*t = 42 // does not affect stored receivers in f and g

The type T may be an interface or non-interface type.

As in the discussion of method expressions above, consider a struct type T with two
methods, Mv, whose receiver is of type T, and Mp, whose receiver is of type *T.

type T struct {
a int
}
func (tv T) Mv(a int) int { return 0 } // value receiver
func (tp *T) Mp(f float32) float32 { return 1 } // pointer receiver

var t T

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var pt *T
func makeT() T

The expression

t.Mv

yields a function value of type

func(int) int

These two invocations are equivalent:

t.Mv(7)
f := t.Mv; f(7)

Similarly, the expression

pt.Mp

yields a function value of type

func(float32) float32

As with selectors, a reference to a non-interface method with a value receiver using a

pointer will automatically dereference that pointer: pt.Mv is equivalent to (*pt).Mv.

As with method calls, a reference to a non-interface method with a pointer receiver using an
addressable value will automatically take the address of that value: t.Mp is equivalent to
(&t).Mp.

f := t.Mv; f(7) // like t.Mv(7)

f := pt.Mp; f(7) // like pt.Mp(7)
f := pt.Mv; f(7) // like (*pt).Mv(7)
f := t.Mp; f(7) // like (&t).Mp(7)
f := makeT().Mp // invalid: result of makeT() is not addressable

Although the examples above use non-interface types, it is also legal to create a method
value from a value of interface type.

var i interface { M(int) } = myVal

f := i.M; f(7) // like i.M(7)

Index expressions

A primary expression of the form

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a[x]

denotes the element of the array, pointer to array, slice, string or map a indexed by x. The
value x is called the index or map key, respectively. The following rules apply:

If a is neither a map nor a type parameter:

• the index x must be an untyped constant or its core type must be an integer
• a constant index must be non-negative and representable by a value of type int
• a constant index that is untyped is given type int
• the index x is in range if 0 <= x < len(a), otherwise it is out of range

For a of array type A:

• a constant index must be in range

• if x is out of range at run time, a run-time panic occurs
• a[x] is the array element at index x and the type of a[x] is the element type of A

For a of pointer to array type:

• a[x] is shorthand for (*a)[x]

For a of slice type S:

• if x is out of range at run time, a run-time panic occurs

• a[x] is the slice element at index x and the type of a[x] is the element type of S

For a of string type:

• a constant index must be in range if the string a is also constant

• if x is out of range at run time, a run-time panic occurs
• a[x] is the non-constant byte value at index x and the type of a[x] is byte
• a[x] may not be assigned to

For a of map type M:

• x's type must be assignable to the key type of M

• if the map contains an entry with key x, a[x] is the map element with key x and the
type of a[x] is the element type of M
• if the map is nil or does not contain such an entry, a[x] is the zero value for the
element type of M

For a of type parameter type P:

• The index expression a[x] must be valid for values of all types in P's type set.
• The element types of all types in P's type set must be identical. In this context, the

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element type of a string type is byte.

• If there is a map type in the type set of P, all types in that type set must be map types,
and the respective key types must be all identical.
• a[x] is the array, slice, or string element at index x, or the map element with key x of
the type argument that P is instantiated with, and the type of a[x] is the type of the
(identical) element types.
• a[x] may not be assigned to if P's type set includes string types.

Otherwise a[x] is illegal.

An index expression on a map a of type map[K]V used in an assignment statement or

initialization of the special form

v, ok = a[x]
v, ok := a[x]
var v, ok = a[x]

yields an additional untyped boolean value. The value of ok is true if the key x is present
in the map, and false otherwise.

Assigning to an element of a nil map causes a run-time panic.

Slice expressions

Slice expressions construct a substring or slice from a string, array, pointer to array, or
slice. There are two variants: a simple form that specifies a low and high bound, and a full
form that also specifies a bound on the capacity.

Simple slice expressions

The primary expression

a[low : high]

constructs a substring or slice. The core type of a must be a string, array, pointer to array,
slice, or a bytestring. The indices low and high select which elements of operand a
appear in the result. The result has indices starting at 0 and length equal to high - low.
After slicing the array a

a := [5]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
s := a[1:4]

the slice s has type []int, length 3, capacity 4, and elements

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s[0] == 2
s[1] == 3
s[2] == 4

For convenience, any of the indices may be omitted. A missing low index defaults to zero;
a missing high index defaults to the length of the sliced operand:

a[2:] // same as a[2 : len(a)]

a[:3] // same as a[0 : 3]
a[:] // same as a[0 : len(a)]

If a is a pointer to an array, a[low : high] is shorthand for (*a)[low : high].

For arrays or strings, the indices are in range if 0 <= low <= high <= len(a), otherwise
they are out of range. For slices, the upper index bound is the slice capacity cap(a) rather
than the length. A constant index must be non-negative and representable by a value of
type int; for arrays or constant strings, constant indices must also be in range. If both
indices are constant, they must satisfy low <= high. If the indices are out of range at run
time, a run-time panic occurs.

Except for untyped strings, if the sliced operand is a string or slice, the result of the slice
operation is a non-constant value of the same type as the operand. For untyped string
operands the result is a non-constant value of type string. If the sliced operand is an
array, it must be addressable and the result of the slice operation is a slice with the same
element type as the array.

If the sliced operand of a valid slice expression is a nil slice, the result is a nil slice.
Otherwise, if the result is a slice, it shares its underlying array with the operand.

var a [10]int
s1 := a[3:7] // underlying array of s1 is array a; &s1[2] == &a[5]
s2 := s1[1:4] // underlying array of s2 is underlying array of s1 which is array a; &s2
s2[1] = 42 // s2[1] == s1[2] == a[5] == 42; they all refer to the same underlying ar

var s []int
s3 := s[:0] // s3 == nil

Full slice expressions

The primary expression

a[low : high : max]

constructs a slice of the same type, and with the same length and elements as the simple
slice expression a[low : high]. Additionally, it controls the resulting slice's capacity by
setting it to max - low. Only the first index may be omitted; it defaults to 0. The core type of
a must be an array, pointer to array, or slice (but not a string). After slicing the array a

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a := [5]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
t := a[1:3:5]

the slice t has type []int, length 2, capacity 4, and elements

t[0] == 2
t[1] == 3

As for simple slice expressions, if a is a pointer to an array, a[low : high : max] is

shorthand for (*a)[low : high : max]. If the sliced operand is an array, it must be
addressable.

The indices are in range if 0 <= low <= high <= max <= cap(a), otherwise they are out
of range. A constant index must be non-negative and representable by a value of type int;
for arrays, constant indices must also be in range. If multiple indices are constant, the
constants that are present must be in range relative to each other. If the indices are out of
range at run time, a run-time panic occurs.

Type assertions

For an expression x of interface type, but not a type parameter, and a type T, the primary
expression

x.(T)

asserts that x is not nil and that the value stored in x is of type T. The notation x.(T) is
called a type assertion.

More precisely, if T is not an interface type, x.(T) asserts that the dynamic type of x is
identical to the type T. In this case, T must implement the (interface) type of x; otherwise
the type assertion is invalid since it is not possible for x to store a value of type T. If T is an
interface type, x.(T) asserts that the dynamic type of x implements the interface T.

If the type assertion holds, the value of the expression is the value stored in x and its type is
T. If the type assertion is false, a run-time panic occurs. In other words, even though the
dynamic type of x is known only at run time, the type of x.(T) is known to be T in a correct
program.

var x interface{} = 7 // x has dynamic type int and value 7

i := x.(int) // i has type int and value 7

type I interface { m() }

func f(y I) {
s := y.(string) // illegal: string does not implement I (missing method m
r := y.(io.Reader) // r has type io.Reader and the dynamic type of y must im
…

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A type assertion used in an assignment statement or initialization of the special form

v, ok = x.(T)
v, ok := x.(T)
var v, ok = x.(T)
var v, ok interface{} = x.(T) // dynamic types of v and ok are T and bool

yields an additional untyped boolean value. The value of ok is true if the assertion holds.
Otherwise it is false and the value of v is the zero value for type T. No run-time panic
occurs in this case.

Calls

Given an expression f with a core type F of function type,

f(a1, a2, … an)

calls f with arguments a1, a2, … an. Except for one special case, arguments must be
single-valued expressions assignable to the parameter types of F and are evaluated before
the function is called. The type of the expression is the result type of F. A method invocation
is similar but the method itself is specified as a selector upon a value of the receiver type for
the method.

math.Atan2(x, y) // function call

var pt *Point
pt.Scale(3.5) // method call with receiver pt

If f denotes a generic function, it must be instantiated before it can be called or used as a

function value.

In a function call, the function value and arguments are evaluated in the usual order. After
they are evaluated, new storage is allocated for the function's variables, which includes its
parameters and results. Then, the arguments of the call are passed to the function, which
means that they are assigned to their corresponding function parameters, and the called
function begins execution. The return parameters of the function are passed back to the
caller when the function returns.

Calling a nil function value causes a run-time panic.

As a special case, if the return values of a function or method g are equal in number and
individually assignable to the parameters of another function or method f, then the call
f(g(parameters_of_g)) will invoke f after passing the return values of g to the
parameters of f in order. The call of f must contain no parameters other than the call of g,
and g must have at least one return value. If f has a final ... parameter, it is assigned the

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return values of g that remain after assignment of regular parameters.

func Split(s string, pos int) (string, string) {

return s[0:pos], s[pos:]
}

func Join(s, t string) string {

return s + t
}

if Join(Split(value, len(value)/2)) != value {

log.Panic("test fails")
}

A method call x.m() is valid if the method set of (the type of) x contains m and the
argument list can be assigned to the parameter list of m. If x is addressable and &x's
method set contains m, x.m() is shorthand for (&x).m():

var p Point
p.Scale(3.5)

There is no distinct method type and there are no method literals.

Passing arguments to ... parameters

If f is variadic with a final parameter p of type ...T, then within f the type of p is
equivalent to type []T. If f is invoked with no actual arguments for p, the value passed to p
is nil. Otherwise, the value passed is a new slice of type []T with a new underlying array
whose successive elements are the actual arguments, which all must be assignable to T.
The length and capacity of the slice is therefore the number of arguments bound to p and
may differ for each call site.

Given the function and calls

func Greeting(prefix string, who ...string)

Greeting("nobody")
Greeting("hello:", "Joe", "Anna", "Eileen")

within Greeting, who will have the value nil in the first call, and []string{"Joe",
"Anna", "Eileen"} in the second.

If the final argument is assignable to a slice type []T and is followed by ..., it is passed
unchanged as the value for a ...T parameter. In this case no new slice is created.

Given the slice s and call

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s := []string{"James", "Jasmine"}
Greeting("goodbye:", s...)

within Greeting, who will have the same value as s with the same underlying array.

Instantiations

A generic function or type is instantiated by substituting type arguments for the type
parameters [Go 1.18]. Instantiation proceeds in two steps:

1. Each type argument is substituted for its corresponding type parameter in the generic
declaration. This substitution happens across the entire function or type declaration,
including the type parameter list itself and any types in that list.
2. After substitution, each type argument must satisfy the constraint (instantiated, if
necessary) of the corresponding type parameter. Otherwise instantiation fails.

Instantiating a type results in a new non-generic named type; instantiating a function

produces a new non-generic function.

type parameter list type arguments after substitution

[P any] int int satisfies any

[S ~[]E, E any] []int, int []int satisfies ~[]int, int satisfies any
[P io.Writer] string illegal: string doesn't satisfy io.Writer
[P comparable] any any satisfies (but does not implement) comparab

When using a generic function, type arguments may be provided explicitly, or they may be
partially or completely inferred from the context in which the function is used. Provided that
they can be inferred, type argument lists may be omitted entirely if the function is:

• called with ordinary arguments,

• assigned to a variable with a known type
• passed as an argument to another function, or
• returned as a result.

In all other cases, a (possibly partial) type argument list must be present. If a type argument
list is absent or partial, all missing type arguments must be inferrable from the context in
which the function is used.

// sum returns the sum (concatenation, for strings) of its arguments.

func sum[T ~int | ~float64 | ~string](x... T) T { … }

x := sum // illegal: the type of x is unknown

intSum := sum[int] // intSum has type func(x... int) int
a := intSum(2, 3) // a has value 5 of type int
b := sum[float64](2.0, 3) // b has value 5.0 of type float64
c := sum(b, -1) // c has value 4.0 of type float64

type sumFunc func(x... string) string

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var f sumFunc = sum // same as var f sumFunc = sum[string]

f = sum // same as f = sum[string]

A partial type argument list cannot be empty; at least the first argument must be present.
The list is a prefix of the full list of type arguments, leaving the remaining arguments to be
inferred. Loosely speaking, type arguments may be omitted from "right to left".

func apply[S ~[]E, E any](s S, f func(E) E) S { … }

f0 := apply[] // illegal: type argument list cannot be empty

f1 := apply[[]int] // type argument for S explicitly provided, type argument
f2 := apply[[]string, string] // both type arguments explicitly provided

var bytes []byte

r := apply(bytes, func(byte) byte { … }) // both type arguments inferred from the funct

For a generic type, all type arguments must always be provided explicitly.

Type inference

A use of a generic function may omit some or all type arguments if they can be inferred
from the context within which the function is used, including the constraints of the function's
type parameters. Type inference succeeds if it can infer the missing type arguments and
instantiation succeeds with the inferred type arguments. Otherwise, type inference fails and
the program is invalid.

Type inference uses the type relationships between pairs of types for inference: For
instance, a function argument must be assignable to its respective function parameter; this
establishes a relationship between the type of the argument and the type of the parameter.
If either of these two types contains type parameters, type inference looks for the type
arguments to substitute the type parameters with such that the assignability relationship is
satisfied. Similarly, type inference uses the fact that a type argument must satisfy the
constraint of its respective type parameter.

Each such pair of matched types corresponds to a type equation containing one or multiple
type parameters, from one or possibly multiple generic functions. Inferring the missing type
arguments means solving the resulting set of type equations for the respective type
parameters.

For example, given

// dedup returns a copy of the argument slice with any duplicate entries removed.
func dedup[S ~[]E, E comparable](S) S { … }

type Slice []int

var s Slice
s = dedup(s) // same as s = dedup[Slice, int](s)

the variable s of type Slice must be assignable to the function parameter type S for the

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program to be valid. To reduce complexity, type inference ignores the directionality of

assignments, so the type relationship between Slice and S can be expressed via the
(symmetric) type equation Slice ≡A S (or S ≡A Slice for that matter), where the A in ≡A
indicates that the LHS and RHS types must match per assignability rules (see the section
on type unification for details). Similarly, the type parameter S must satisfy its constraint
~[]E. This can be expressed as S ≡C ~[]E where X ≡C Y stands for "X satisfies constraint
Y". These observations lead to a set of two equations

Slice ≡A S (1)
S ≡C ~[]E (2)

which now can be solved for the type parameters S and E. From (1) a compiler can infer
that the type argument for S is Slice. Similarly, because the underlying type of Slice is
[]int and []int must match []E of the constraint, a compiler can infer that E must be
int. Thus, for these two equations, type inference infers

S ➞ Slice
E ➞ int

Given a set of type equations, the type parameters to solve for are the type parameters of
the functions that need to be instantiated and for which no explicit type arguments is
provided. These type parameters are called bound type parameters. For instance, in the
dedup example above, the type parameters S and E are bound to dedup. An argument to a
generic function call may be a generic function itself. The type parameters of that function
are included in the set of bound type parameters. The types of function arguments may
contain type parameters from other functions (such as a generic function enclosing a
function call). Those type parameters may also appear in type equations but they are not
bound in that context. Type equations are always solved for the bound type parameters
only.

Type inference supports calls of generic functions and assignments of generic functions to
(explicitly function-typed) variables. This includes passing generic functions as arguments
to other (possibly also generic) functions, and returning generic functions as results. Type
inference operates on a set of equations specific to each of these cases. The equations are
as follows (type argument lists are omitted for clarity):

• For a function call f(a0, a1, …) where f or a function argument ai is a generic

function:
Each pair (ai, pi) of corresponding function arguments and parameters where ai is
not an untyped constant yields an equation typeof(pi) ≡A typeof(ai).
If ai is an untyped constant cj, and typeof(pi) is a bound type parameter Pk, the
pair (cj, Pk) is collected separately from the type equations.

• For an assignment v = f of a generic function f to a (non-generic) variable v of

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function type:
typeof(v) ≡A typeof(f).

• For a return statement return …, f, … where f is a generic function returned as a

result to a (non-generic) result variable r of function type:
typeof(r) ≡A typeof(f).

Additionally, each type parameter Pk and corresponding type constraint Ck yields the type
equation Pk ≡C Ck.

Type inference gives precedence to type information obtained from typed operands before
considering untyped constants. Therefore, inference proceeds in two phases:

1. The type equations are solved for the bound type parameters using type unification. If
unification fails, type inference fails.

2. For each bound type parameter Pk for which no type argument has been inferred yet
and for which one or more pairs (cj, Pk) with that same type parameter were
collected, determine the constant kind of the constants cj in all those pairs the same
way as for constant expressions. The type argument for Pk is the default type for the
determined constant kind. If a constant kind cannot be determined due to conflicting
constant kinds, type inference fails.

If not all type arguments have been found after these two phases, type inference fails.

If the two phases are successful, type inference determined a type argument for each
bound type parameter:

Pk ➞ Ak

A type argument Ak may be a composite type, containing other bound type parameters Pk
as element types (or even be just another bound type parameter). In a process of repeated
simplification, the bound type parameters in each type argument are substituted with the
respective type arguments for those type parameters until each type argument is free of
bound type parameters.

If type arguments contain cyclic references to themselves through bound type parameters,
simplification and thus type inference fails. Otherwise, type inference succeeds.

Type unification

Type inference solves type equations through type unification. Type unification recursively
compares the LHS and RHS types of an equation, where either or both types may be or
contain bound type parameters, and looks for type arguments for those type parameters
such that the LHS and RHS match (become identical or assignment-compatible, depending
on context). To that effect, type inference maintains a map of bound type parameters to

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inferred type arguments; this map is consulted and updated during type unification. Initially,
the bound type parameters are known but the map is empty. During type unification, if a
new type argument A is inferred, the respective mapping P ➞ A from type parameter to
argument is added to the map. Conversely, when comparing types, a known type argument
(a type argument for which a map entry already exists) takes the place of its corresponding
type parameter. As type inference progresses, the map is populated more and more until all
equations have been considered, or until unification fails. Type inference succeeds if no
unification step fails and the map has an entry for each type parameter.

For example, given the type equation with the bound type parameter P

[10]struct{ elem P, list []P } ≡A [10]struct{ elem string; list []string }

type inference starts with an empty map. Unification first compares the top-level structure of
the LHS and RHS types. Both are arrays of the same length; they unify if the element types
unify. Both element types are structs; they unify if they have the same number of fields with
the same names and if the field types unify. The type argument for P is not known yet (there
is no map entry), so unifying P with string adds the mapping P ➞ string to the map.
Unifying the types of the list field requires unifying []P and []string and thus P and
string. Since the type argument for P is known at this point (there is a map entry for P), its
type argument string takes the place of P. And since string is identical to string, this
unification step succeeds as well. Unification of the LHS and RHS of the equation is now
finished. Type inference succeeds because there is only one type equation, no unification
step failed, and the map is fully populated.

Unification uses a combination of exact and loose unification depending on whether two
types have to be identical, assignment-compatible, or only structurally equal. The respective
type unification rules are spelled out in detail in the Appendix.

For an equation of the form X ≡A Y, where X and Y are types involved in an assignment
(including parameter passing and return statements), the top-level type structures may unify
loosely but element types must unify exactly, matching the rules for assignments.

For an equation of the form P ≡C C, where P is a type parameter and C its corresponding
constraint, the unification rules are bit more complicated:

• If C has a core type core(C) and P has a known type argument A, core(C) and A
must unify loosely. If P does not have a known type argument and C contains exactly
one type term T that is not an underlying (tilde) type, unification adds the mapping P ➞
T to the map.
• If C does not have a core type and P has a known type argument A, A must have all
methods of C, if any, and corresponding method types must unify exactly.

When solving type equations from type constraints, solving one equation may infer
additional type arguments, which in turn may enable solving other equations that depend on

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those type arguments. Type inference repeats type unification as long as new type
arguments are inferred.

Operators

Operators combine operands into expressions.

Expression = UnaryExpr | Expression binary_op Expression .

UnaryExpr = PrimaryExpr | unary_op UnaryExpr .

binary_op = "||" | "&&" | rel_op | add_op | mul_op .

rel_op = "==" | "!=" | "<" | "<=" | ">" | ">=" .
add_op = "+" | "-" | "|" | "^" .
mul_op = "*" | "/" | "%" | "<<" | ">>" | "&" | "&^" .

unary_op = "+" | "-" | "!" | "^" | "*" | "&" | "<-" .

Comparisons are discussed elsewhere. For other binary operators, the operand types must
be identical unless the operation involves shifts or untyped constants. For operations
involving constants only, see the section on constant expressions.

Except for shift operations, if one operand is an untyped constant and the other operand is
not, the constant is implicitly converted to the type of the other operand.

The right operand in a shift expression must have integer type [Go 1.13] or be an untyped
constant representable by a value of type uint. If the left operand of a non-constant shift
expression is an untyped constant, it is first implicitly converted to the type it would assume
if the shift expression were replaced by its left operand alone.

var a [1024]byte
var s uint = 33

// The results of the following examples are given for 64-bit ints.
var i = 1<<s // 1 has type int
var j int32 = 1<<s // 1 has type int32; j == 0
var k = uint64(1<<s) // 1 has type uint64; k == 1<<33
var m int = 1.0<<s // 1.0 has type int; m == 1<<33
var n = 1.0<<s == j // 1.0 has type int32; n == true
var o = 1<<s == 2<<s // 1 and 2 have type int; o == false
var p = 1<<s == 1<<33 // 1 has type int; p == true
var u = 1.0<<s // illegal: 1.0 has type float64, cannot shift
var u1 = 1.0<<s != 0 // illegal: 1.0 has type float64, cannot shift
var u2 = 1<<s != 1.0 // illegal: 1 has type float64, cannot shift
var v1 float32 = 1<<s // illegal: 1 has type float32, cannot shift
var v2 = string(1<<s) // illegal: 1 is converted to a string, cannot shift
var w int64 = 1.0<<33 // 1.0<<33 is a constant shift expression; w == 1<<33
var x = a[1.0<<s] // panics: 1.0 has type int, but 1<<33 overflows array bo
var b = make([]byte, 1.0<<s) // 1.0 has type int; len(b) == 1<<33

// The results of the following examples are given for 32-bit ints,
// which means the shifts will overflow.

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var mm int = 1.0<<s // 1.0 has type int; mm == 0

var oo = 1<<s == 2<<s // 1 and 2 have type int; oo == true
var pp = 1<<s == 1<<33 // illegal: 1 has type int, but 1<<33 overflows int
var xx = a[1.0<<s] // 1.0 has type int; xx == a[0]
var bb = make([]byte, 1.0<<s) // 1.0 has type int; len(bb) == 0

Operator precedence

Unary operators have the highest precedence. As the ++ and -- operators form
statements, not expressions, they fall outside the operator hierarchy. As a consequence,
statement *p++ is the same as (*p)++.

There are five precedence levels for binary operators. Multiplication operators bind
strongest, followed by addition operators, comparison operators, && (logical AND), and
finally || (logical OR):

Precedence Operator
5 * / % << >> & &^
4 + - | ^
3 == != < <= > >=
2 &&
1 ||

Binary operators of the same precedence associate from left to right. For instance, x / y *
z is the same as (x / y) * z.

+x // x
42 + a - b // (42 + a) - b
23 + 3*x[i] // 23 + (3 * x[i])
x <= f() // x <= f()
^a >> b // (^a) >> b
f() || g() // f() || g()
x == y+1 && <-chanInt > 0 // (x == (y+1)) && ((<-chanInt) > 0)

Arithmetic operators

Arithmetic operators apply to numeric values and yield a result of the same type as the first
operand. The four standard arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /) apply to integer, floating-point,
and complex types; + also applies to strings. The bitwise logical and shift operators apply to
integers only.

+ sum integers, floats, complex values, strings

- difference integers, floats, complex values
* product integers, floats, complex values
/ quotient integers, floats, complex values
% remainder integers

& bitwise AND integers

| bitwise OR integers
^ bitwise XOR integers

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&^ bit clear (AND NOT) integers

<< left shift integer << integer >= 0

>> right shift integer >> integer >= 0

If the operand type is a type parameter, the operator must apply to each type in that type
set. The operands are represented as values of the type argument that the type parameter
is instantiated with, and the operation is computed with the precision of that type argument.
For example, given the function:

func dotProduct[F ~float32|~float64](v1, v2 []F) F {

var s F
for i, x := range v1 {
y := v2[i]
s += x * y
}
return s
}

the product x * y and the addition s += x * y are computed with float32 or float64
precision, respectively, depending on the type argument for F.

Integer operators

For two integer values x and y, the integer quotient q = x / y and remainder r = x % y
satisfy the following relationships:

x = q*y + r and |r| < |y|

with x / y truncated towards zero ("truncated division").

x y x / y x % y
5 3 1 2
-5 3 -1 -2
5 -3 -1 2
-5 -3 1 -2

The one exception to this rule is that if the dividend x is the most negative value for the int
type of x, the quotient q = x / -1 is equal to x (and r = 0) due to two's-complement integer
overflow:

x, q
int8 -128
int16 -32768
int32 -2147483648
int64 -9223372036854775808

If the divisor is a constant, it must not be zero. If the divisor is zero at run time, a run-time
panic occurs. If the dividend is non-negative and the divisor is a constant power of 2, the

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division may be replaced by a right shift, and computing the remainder may be replaced by
a bitwise AND operation:

x x / 4 x % 4 x >> 2 x & 3
11 2 3 2 3
-11 -2 -3 -3 1

The shift operators shift the left operand by the shift count specified by the right operand,
which must be non-negative. If the shift count is negative at run time, a run-time panic
occurs. The shift operators implement arithmetic shifts if the left operand is a signed integer
and logical shifts if it is an unsigned integer. There is no upper limit on the shift count. Shifts
behave as if the left operand is shifted n times by 1 for a shift count of n. As a result, x << 1
is the same as x*2 and x >> 1 is the same as x/2 but truncated towards negative infinity.

For integer operands, the unary operators +, -, and ^ are defined as follows:

+x is 0 + x
-x negation is 0 - x
^x bitwise complement is m ^ x with m = "all bits set to 1" for unsigned x
and m = -1 for signed x

Integer overflow

For unsigned integer values, the operations +, -, *, and << are computed modulo 2n, where
n is the bit width of the unsigned integer's type. Loosely speaking, these unsigned integer
operations discard high bits upon overflow, and programs may rely on "wrap around".

For signed integers, the operations +, -, *, /, and << may legally overflow and the resulting
value exists and is deterministically defined by the signed integer representation, the
operation, and its operands. Overflow does not cause a run-time panic. A compiler may not
optimize code under the assumption that overflow does not occur. For instance, it may not
assume that x < x + 1 is always true.

Floating-point operators

For floating-point and complex numbers, +x is the same as x, while -x is the negation of x.
The result of a floating-point or complex division by zero is not specified beyond the IEEE
754 standard; whether a run-time panic occurs is implementation-specific.

An implementation may combine multiple floating-point operations into a single fused

operation, possibly across statements, and produce a result that differs from the value
obtained by executing and rounding the instructions individually. An explicit floating-point
type conversion rounds to the precision of the target type, preventing fusion that would
discard that rounding.

For instance, some architectures provide a "fused multiply and add" (FMA) instruction that
computes x*y + z without rounding the intermediate result x*y. These examples show

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when a Go implementation can use that instruction:

// FMA allowed for computing r, because x*y is not explicitly rounded:

r = x*y + z
r = z; r += x*y
t = x*y; r = t + z
*p = x*y; r = *p + z
r = x*y + float64(z)

// FMA disallowed for computing r, because it would omit rounding of x*y:

r = float64(x*y) + z
r = z; r += float64(x*y)
t = float64(x*y); r = t + z

String concatenation

Strings can be concatenated using the + operator or the += assignment operator:

s := "hi" + string(c)
s += " and good bye"

String addition creates a new string by concatenating the operands.

Comparison operators

Comparison operators compare two operands and yield an untyped boolean value.

== equal
!= not equal
< less
<= less or equal
> greater
>= greater or equal

In any comparison, the first operand must be assignable to the type of the second operand,
or vice versa.

The equality operators == and != apply to operands of comparable types. The ordering
operators <, <=, >, and >= apply to operands of ordered types. These terms and the result
of the comparisons are defined as follows:

• Boolean types are comparable. Two boolean values are equal if they are either both
true or both false.
• Integer types are comparable and ordered. Two integer values are compared in the
usual way.
• Floating-point types are comparable and ordered. Two floating-point values are
compared as defined by the IEEE 754 standard.
• Complex types are comparable. Two complex values u and v are equal if both
real(u) == real(v) and imag(u) == imag(v).

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• String types are comparable and ordered. Two string values are compared lexically
byte-wise.
• Pointer types are comparable. Two pointer values are equal if they point to the same
variable or if both have value nil. Pointers to distinct zero-size variables may or may
not be equal.
• Channel types are comparable. Two channel values are equal if they were created by
the same call to make or if both have value nil.
• Interface types that are not type parameters are comparable. Two interface values are
equal if they have identical dynamic types and equal dynamic values or if both have
value nil.
• A value x of non-interface type X and a value t of interface type T can be compared if
type X is comparable and X implements T. They are equal if t's dynamic type is
identical to X and t's dynamic value is equal to x.
• Struct types are comparable if all their field types are comparable. Two struct values
are equal if their corresponding non-blank field values are equal. The fields are
compared in source order, and comparison stops as soon as two field values differ (or
all fields have been compared).
• Array types are comparable if their array element types are comparable. Two array
values are equal if their corresponding element values are equal. The elements are
compared in ascending index order, and comparison stops as soon as two element
values differ (or all elements have been compared).
• Type parameters are comparable if they are strictly comparable (see below).

A comparison of two interface values with identical dynamic types causes a run-time panic
if that type is not comparable. This behavior applies not only to direct interface value
comparisons but also when comparing arrays of interface values or structs with interface-
valued fields.

Slice, map, and function types are not comparable. However, as a special case, a slice,
map, or function value may be compared to the predeclared identifier nil. Comparison of
pointer, channel, and interface values to nil is also allowed and follows from the general
rules above.

const c = 3 < 4 // c is the untyped boolean constant true

type MyBool bool

var x, y int
var (
// The result of a comparison is an untyped boolean.
// The usual assignment rules apply.
b3 = x == y // b3 has type bool
b4 bool = x == y // b4 has type bool
b5 MyBool = x == y // b5 has type MyBool
)

A type is strictly comparable if it is comparable and not an interface type nor composed of
interface types. Specifically:

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• Boolean, numeric, string, pointer, and channel types are strictly comparable.
• Struct types are strictly comparable if all their field types are strictly comparable.
• Array types are strictly comparable if their array element types are strictly comparable.
• Type parameters are strictly comparable if all types in their type set are strictly
comparable.

Logical operators

Logical operators apply to boolean values and yield a result of the same type as the
operands. The left operand is evaluated, and then the right if the condition requires it.

&& conditional AND p && q is "if p then q else false"

|| conditional OR p || q is "if p then true else q"
! NOT !p is "not p"

Address operators

For an operand x of type T, the address operation &x generates a pointer of type *T to x.
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
may also be a (possibly parenthesized) composite literal. If the evaluation of x would cause
a run-time panic, then the evaluation of &x does too.

For an operand x of pointer type *T, the pointer indirection *x denotes the variable of type
T pointed to by x. If x is nil, an attempt to evaluate *x will cause a run-time panic.

&x
&a[f(2)]
&Point{2, 3}
*p
*pf(x)

var x *int = nil

*x // causes a run-time panic
&*x // causes a run-time panic

Receive operator

For an operand ch whose core type is a channel, the value of the receive operation <-ch is
the value received from the channel ch. The channel direction must permit receive
operations, and the type of the receive operation is the element type of the channel. The
expression blocks until a value is available. Receiving from a nil channel blocks forever. A
receive operation on a closed channel can always proceed immediately, yielding the
element type's zero value after any previously sent values have been received.

v1 := <-ch
v2 = <-ch

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f(<-ch)
<-strobe // wait until clock pulse and discard received value

A receive expression used in an assignment statement or initialization of the special form

x, ok = <-ch
x, ok := <-ch
var x, ok = <-ch
var x, ok T = <-ch

yields an additional untyped boolean result reporting whether the communication

succeeded. The value of ok is true if the value received was delivered by a successful
send operation to the channel, or false if it is a zero value generated because the channel
is closed and empty.

Conversions

A conversion changes the type of an expression to the type specified by the conversion. A
conversion may appear literally in the source, or it may be implied by the context in which
an expression appears.

An explicit conversion is an expression of the form T(x) where T is a type and x is an

expression that can be converted to type T.

Conversion = Type "(" Expression [ "," ] ")" .

If the type starts with the operator * or <-, or if the type starts with the keyword func and
has no result list, it must be parenthesized when necessary to avoid ambiguity:

*Point(p) // same as *(Point(p))

(*Point)(p) // p is converted to *Point
<-chan int(c) // same as <-(chan int(c))
(<-chan int)(c) // c is converted to <-chan int
func()(x) // function signature func() x
(func())(x) // x is converted to func()
(func() int)(x) // x is converted to func() int
func() int(x) // x is converted to func() int (unambiguous)

A constant value x can be converted to type T if x is representable by a value of T. As a

special case, an integer constant x can be explicitly converted to a string type using the
same rule as for non-constant x.

Converting a constant to a type that is not a type parameter yields a typed constant.

uint(iota) // iota value of type uint

float32(2.718281828) // 2.718281828 of type float32
complex128(1) // 1.0 + 0.0i of type complex128
float32(0.49999999) // 0.5 of type float32

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float64(-1e-1000) // 0.0 of type float64

string('x') // "x" of type string
string(0x266c) // "♬" of type string
myString("foo" + "bar") // "foobar" of type myString
string([]byte{'a'}) // not a constant: []byte{'a'} is not a constant
(*int)(nil) // not a constant: nil is not a constant, *int is not a boolean
int(1.2) // illegal: 1.2 cannot be represented as an int
string(65.0) // illegal: 65.0 is not an integer constant

Converting a constant to a type parameter yields a non-constant value of that type, with the
value represented as a value of the type argument that the type parameter is instantiated
with. For example, given the function:

func f[P ~float32|~float64]() {

… P(1.1) …
}

the conversion P(1.1) results in a non-constant value of type P and the value 1.1 is
represented as a float32 or a float64 depending on the type argument for f.
Accordingly, if f is instantiated with a float32 type, the numeric value of the expression
P(1.1) + 1.2 will be computed with the same precision as the corresponding non-
constant float32 addition.

A non-constant value x can be converted to type T in any of these cases:

• x is assignable to T.
• ignoring struct tags (see below), x's type and T are not type parameters but have
identical underlying types.
• ignoring struct tags (see below), x's type and T are pointer types that are not named
types, and their pointer base types are not type parameters but have identical
underlying types.
• x's type and T are both integer or floating point types.
• x's type and T are both complex types.
• x is an integer or a slice of bytes or runes and T is a string type.
• x is a string and T is a slice of bytes or runes.
• x is a slice, T is an array [Go 1.20] or a pointer to an array [Go 1.17], and the slice and
array types have identical element types.

Additionally, if T or x's type V are type parameters, x can also be converted to type T if one
of the following conditions applies:

• Both V and T are type parameters and a value of each type in V's type set can be
converted to each type in T's type set.
• Only V is a type parameter and a value of each type in V's type set can be converted
to T.
• Only T is a type parameter and x can be converted to each type in T's type set.

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Struct tags are ignored when comparing struct types for identity for the purpose of
conversion:

type Person struct {

Name string
Address *struct {
Street string
City string
}
}

var data *struct {

Name string `json:"name"`
Address *struct {
Street string `json:"street"`
City string `json:"city"`
} `json:"address"`
}

var person = (*Person)(data) // ignoring tags, the underlying types are identical

Specific rules apply to (non-constant) conversions between numeric types or to and from a
string type. These conversions may change the representation of x and incur a run-time
cost. All other conversions only change the type but not the representation of x.

There is no linguistic mechanism to convert between pointers and integers. The package
unsafe implements this functionality under restricted circumstances.

Conversions between numeric types

For the conversion of non-constant numeric values, the following rules apply:

1. When converting between integer types, if the value is a signed integer, it is sign
extended to implicit infinite precision; otherwise it is zero extended. It is then truncated
to fit in the result type's size. For example, if v := uint16(0x10F0), then
uint32(int8(v)) == 0xFFFFFFF0. The conversion always yields a valid value;
there is no indication of overflow.
2. When converting a floating-point number to an integer, the fraction is discarded
(truncation towards zero).
3. When converting an integer or floating-point number to a floating-point type, or a
complex number to another complex type, the result value is rounded to the precision
specified by the destination type. For instance, the value of a variable x of type
float32 may be stored using additional precision beyond that of an IEEE 754 32-bit
number, but float32(x) represents the result of rounding x's value to 32-bit precision.
Similarly, x + 0.1 may use more than 32 bits of precision, but float32(x + 0.1)
does not.

In all non-constant conversions involving floating-point or complex values, if the result type
cannot represent the value the conversion succeeds but the result value is implementation-

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dependent.

Conversions to and from a string type

1. Converting a slice of bytes to a string type yields a string whose successive bytes are
the elements of the slice.

string([]byte{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', '\xc3', '\xb8'}) // "hellø"

string([]byte{}) // ""
string([]byte(nil)) // ""

type bytes []byte

string(bytes{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', '\xc3', '\xb8'}) // "hellø"

type myByte byte

string([]myByte{'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '!'}) // "world!"
myString([]myByte{'\xf0', '\x9f', '\x8c', '\x8d'}) // " "

2. Converting a slice of runes to a string type yields a string that is the concatenation of
the individual rune values converted to strings.

string([]rune{0x767d, 0x9d6c, 0x7fd4}) // "\u767d\u9d6c\u7fd4" == "⽩鵬翔

string([]rune{}) // ""
string([]rune(nil)) // ""

type runes []rune

string(runes{0x767d, 0x9d6c, 0x7fd4}) // "\u767d\u9d6c\u7fd4" == "⽩鵬翔

type myRune rune

string([]myRune{0x266b, 0x266c}) // "\u266b\u266c" == "♫♬"
myString([]myRune{0x1f30e}) // "\U0001f30e" == " "

3. Converting a value of a string type to a slice of bytes type yields a non-nil slice whose
successive elements are the bytes of the string. The capacity of the resulting slice is
implementation-specific and may be larger than the slice length.

[]byte("hellø") // []byte{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', '\xc3', '\xb8'}

[]byte("") // []byte{}

bytes("hellø") // []byte{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', '\xc3', '\xb8'}

[]myByte("world!") // []myByte{'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd', '!'}

[]myByte(myString(" ")) // []myByte{'\xf0', '\x9f', '\x8c', '\x8f'}

4. Converting a value of a string type to a slice of runes type yields a slice containing the
individual Unicode code points of the string. The capacity of the resulting slice is
implementation-specific and may be larger than the slice length.

[]rune(myString("⽩鵬翔")) // []rune{0x767d, 0x9d6c, 0x7fd4}

[]rune("") // []rune{}

runes("⽩鵬翔") // []rune{0x767d, 0x9d6c, 0x7fd4}

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[]myRune("♫♬") // []myRune{0x266b, 0x266c}

[]myRune(myString(" ")) // []myRune{0x1f310}

5. Finally, for historical reasons, an integer value may be converted to a string type. This
form of conversion yields a string containing the (possibly multi-byte) UTF-8
representation of the Unicode code point with the given integer value. Values outside
the range of valid Unicode code points are converted to "\uFFFD".

string('a') // "a"
string(65) // "A"
string('\xf8') // "\u00f8" == "ø" == "\xc3\xb8"
string(-1) // "\ufffd" == "\xef\xbf\xbd"

type myString string

myString('\u65e5') // "\u65e5" == "⽇" == "\xe6\x97\xa5"

Note: This form of conversion may eventually be removed from the language. The go
vet tool flags certain integer-to-string conversions as potential errors. Library
functions such as utf8.AppendRune or utf8.EncodeRune should be used
instead.

Conversions from slice to array or array pointer

Converting a slice to an array yields an array containing the elements of the underlying
array of the slice. Similarly, converting a slice to an array pointer yields a pointer to the
underlying array of the slice. In both cases, if the length of the slice is less than the length of
the array, a run-time panic occurs.

s := make([]byte, 2, 4)

a0 := [0]byte(s)
a1 := [1]byte(s[1:]) // a1[0] == s[1]
a2 := [2]byte(s) // a2[0] == s[0]
a4 := [4]byte(s) // panics: len([4]byte) > len(s)

s0 := (*[0]byte)(s) // s0 != nil
s1 := (*[1]byte)(s[1:]) // &s1[0] == &s[1]
s2 := (*[2]byte)(s) // &s2[0] == &s[0]
s4 := (*[4]byte)(s) // panics: len([4]byte) > len(s)

var t []string
t0 := [0]string(t) // ok for nil slice t
t1 := (*[0]string)(t) // t1 == nil
t2 := (*[1]string)(t) // panics: len([1]string) > len(t)

u := make([]byte, 0)
u0 := (*[0]byte)(u) // u0 != nil

Constant expressions

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Constant expressions may contain only constant operands and are evaluated at compile
time.

Untyped boolean, numeric, and string constants may be used as operands wherever it is
legal to use an operand of boolean, numeric, or string type, respectively.

A constant comparison always yields an untyped boolean constant. If the left operand of a
constant shift expression is an untyped constant, the result is an integer constant; otherwise
it is a constant of the same type as the left operand, which must be of integer type.

Any other operation on untyped constants results in an untyped constant of the same kind;
that is, a boolean, integer, floating-point, complex, or string constant. If the untyped
operands of a binary operation (other than a shift) are of different kinds, the result is of the
operand's kind that appears later in this list: integer, rune, floating-point, complex. For
example, an untyped integer constant divided by an untyped complex constant yields an
untyped complex constant.

const a = 2 + 3.0 // a == 5.0 (untyped floating-point constant)

const b = 15 / 4 // b == 3 (untyped integer constant)
const c = 15 / 4.0 // c == 3.75 (untyped floating-point constant)
const Θ float64 = 3/2 // Θ == 1.0 (type float64, 3/2 is integer division)
const Π float64 = 3/2. // Π == 1.5 (type float64, 3/2. is float division)
const d = 1 << 3.0 // d == 8 (untyped integer constant)
const e = 1.0 << 3 // e == 8 (untyped integer constant)
const f = int32(1) << 33 // illegal (constant 8589934592 overflows int32)
const g = float64(2) >> 1 // illegal (float64(2) is a typed floating-point constant)
const h = "foo" > "bar" // h == true (untyped boolean constant)
const j = true // j == true (untyped boolean constant)
const k = 'w' + 1 // k == 'x' (untyped rune constant)
const l = "hi" // l == "hi" (untyped string constant)
const m = string(k) // m == "x" (type string)
const Σ = 1 - 0.707i // (untyped complex constant)
const Δ = Σ + 2.0e-4 // (untyped complex constant)
const Φ = iota*1i - 1/1i // (untyped complex constant)

Applying the built-in function complex to untyped integer, rune, or floating-point constants
yields an untyped complex constant.

const ic = complex(0, c) // ic == 3.75i (untyped complex constant)

const iΘ = complex(0, Θ) // iΘ == 1i (type complex128)

Constant expressions are always evaluated exactly; intermediate values and the constants
themselves may require precision significantly larger than supported by any predeclared
type in the language. The following are legal declarations:

const Huge = 1 << 100 // Huge == 1267650600228229401496703205376 (untyped integ

const Four int8 = Huge >> 98 // Four == 4 (type int8)

The divisor of a constant division or remainder operation must not be zero:

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3.14 / 0.0 // illegal: division by zero

The values of typed constants must always be accurately representable by values of the
constant type. The following constant expressions are illegal:

uint(-1) // -1 cannot be represented as a uint

int(3.14) // 3.14 cannot be represented as an int
int64(Huge) // 1267650600228229401496703205376 cannot be represented as an int64
Four * 300 // operand 300 cannot be represented as an int8 (type of Four)
Four * 100 // product 400 cannot be represented as an int8 (type of Four)

The mask used by the unary bitwise complement operator ^ matches the rule for non-
constants: the mask is all 1s for unsigned constants and -1 for signed and untyped
constants.

^1 // untyped integer constant, equal to -2

uint8(^1) // illegal: same as uint8(-2), -2 cannot be represented as a uint8
^uint8(1) // typed uint8 constant, same as 0xFF ^ uint8(1) = uint8(0xFE)
int8(^1) // same as int8(-2)
^int8(1) // same as -1 ^ int8(1) = -2

Implementation restriction: A compiler may use rounding while computing untyped floating-
point or complex constant expressions; see the implementation restriction in the section on
constants. This rounding may cause a floating-point constant expression to be invalid in an
integer context, even if it would be integral when calculated using infinite precision, and vice
versa.

Order of evaluation

At package level, initialization dependencies determine the evaluation order of individual

initialization expressions in variable declarations. Otherwise, when evaluating the operands
of an expression, assignment, or return statement, all function calls, method calls, receive
operations, and binary logical operations are evaluated in lexical left-to-right order.

For example, in the (function-local) assignment

y[f()], ok = g(z || h(), i()+x[j()], <-c), k()

the function calls and communication happen in the order f(), h() (if z evaluates to false),
i(), j(), <-c, g(), and k(). However, the order of those events compared to the
evaluation and indexing of x and the evaluation of y and z is not specified, except as
required lexically. For instance, g cannot be called before its arguments are evaluated.

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a := 1
f := func() int { a++; return a }
x := []int{a, f()} // x may be [1, 2] or [2, 2]: evaluation order between a a
m := map[int]int{a: 1, a: 2} // m may be {2: 1} or {2: 2}: evaluation order between the
n := map[int]int{a: f()} // n may be {2: 3} or {3: 3}: evaluation order between the

At package level, initialization dependencies override the left-to-right rule for individual
initialization expressions, but not for operands within each expression:

var a, b, c = f() + v(), g(), sqr(u()) + v()

func f() int { return c }

func g() int { return a }
func sqr(x int) int { return x*x }

// functions u and v are independent of all other variables and functions

The function calls happen in the order u(), sqr(), v(), f(), v(), and g().

Floating-point operations within a single expression are evaluated according to the

associativity of the operators. Explicit parentheses affect the evaluation by overriding the
default associativity. In the expression x + (y + z) the addition y + z is performed before
adding x.

Statements
Statements control execution.

Statement = Declaration | LabeledStmt | SimpleStmt |

GoStmt | ReturnStmt | BreakStmt | ContinueStmt | GotoStmt |
FallthroughStmt | Block | IfStmt | SwitchStmt | SelectStmt | ForStmt
DeferStmt .

SimpleStmt = EmptyStmt | ExpressionStmt | SendStmt | IncDecStmt | Assignment |

Terminating statements

A terminating statement interrupts the regular flow of control in a block. The following
statements are terminating:

1. A "return" or "goto" statement.

2. A call to the built-in function panic.

3. A block in which the statement list ends in a terminating statement.

4. An "if" statement in which:

◦ the "else" branch is present, and

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◦ both branches are terminating statements.

5. A "for" statement in which:

◦ there are no "break" statements referring to the "for" statement, and

◦ the loop condition is absent, and
◦ the "for" statement does not use a range clause.

6. A "switch" statement in which:

◦ there are no "break" statements referring to the "switch" statement,

◦ there is a default case, and
◦ the statement lists in each case, including the default, end in a terminating
statement, or a possibly labeled "fallthrough" statement.

7. A "select" statement in which:

◦ there are no "break" statements referring to the "select" statement, and

◦ the statement lists in each case, including the default if present, end in a
terminating statement.

8. A labeled statement labeling a terminating statement.

All other statements are not terminating.

A statement list ends in a terminating statement if the list is not empty and its final non-
empty statement is terminating.

Empty statements

The empty statement does nothing.

EmptyStmt = .

Labeled statements

A labeled statement may be the target of a goto, break or continue statement.

LabeledStmt = Label ":" Statement .

Label = identifier .

Error: log.Panic("error encountered")

Expression statements

With the exception of specific built-in functions, function and method calls and receive
operations can appear in statement context. Such statements may be parenthesized.

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ExpressionStmt = Expression .

The following built-in functions are not permitted in statement context:

append cap complex imag len make new real

unsafe.Add unsafe.Alignof unsafe.Offsetof unsafe.Sizeof unsafe.Slice unsafe.SliceData un

h(x+y)
f.Close()
<-ch
(<-ch)
len("foo") // illegal if len is the built-in function

Send statements

A send statement sends a value on a channel. The channel expression's core type must be
a channel, the channel direction must permit send operations, and the type of the value to
be sent must be assignable to the channel's element type.

SendStmt = Channel "<-" Expression .

Channel = Expression .

Both the channel and the value expression are evaluated before communication begins.
Communication blocks until the send can proceed. A send on an unbuffered channel can
proceed if a receiver is ready. A send on a buffered channel can proceed if there is room in
the buffer. A send on a closed channel proceeds by causing a run-time panic. A send on a
nil channel blocks forever.

ch <- 3 // send value 3 to channel ch

IncDec statements

The "++" and "--" statements increment or decrement their operands by the untyped
constant 1. As with an assignment, the operand must be addressable or a map index
expression.

IncDecStmt = Expression ( "++" | "--" ) .

The following assignment statements are semantically equivalent:

IncDec statement Assignment

x++ x += 1
x-- x -= 1

Assignment statements

An assignment replaces the current value stored in a variable with a new value specified by

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an expression. An assignment statement may assign a single value to a single variable, or

multiple values to a matching number of variables.

Assignment = ExpressionList assign_op ExpressionList .

assign_op = [ add_op | mul_op ] "=" .

Each left-hand side operand must be addressable, a map index expression, or (for =
assignments only) the blank identifier. Operands may be parenthesized.

x = 1
*p = f()
a[i] = 23
(k) = <-ch // same as: k = <-ch

An assignment operation x op= y where op is a binary arithmetic operator is equivalent to x

= x op (y) but evaluates x only once. The op= construct is a single token. In assignment
operations, both the left- and right-hand expression lists must contain exactly one single-
valued expression, and the left-hand expression must not be the blank identifier.

a[i] <<= 2
i &^= 1<<n

A tuple assignment assigns the individual elements of a multi-valued operation to a list of

variables. There are two forms. In the first, the right hand operand is a single multi-valued
expression such as a function call, a channel or map operation, or a type assertion. The
number of operands on the left hand side must match the number of values. For instance, if
f is a function returning two values,

x, y = f()

assigns the first value to x and the second to y. In the second form, the number of
operands on the left must equal the number of expressions on the right, each of which must
be single-valued, and the nth expression on the right is assigned to the nth operand on the
left:

one, two, three = '⼀', '⼆', '三'

The blank identifier provides a way to ignore right-hand side values in an assignment:

_ = x // evaluate x but ignore it

x, _ = f() // evaluate f() but ignore second result value

The assignment proceeds in two phases. First, the operands of index expressions and
pointer indirections (including implicit pointer indirections in selectors) on the left and the
expressions on the right are all evaluated in the usual order. Second, the assignments are

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carried out in left-to-right order.

a, b = b, a // exchange a and b

x := []int{1, 2, 3}
i := 0
i, x[i] = 1, 2 // set i = 1, x[0] = 2

i = 0
x[i], i = 2, 1 // set x[0] = 2, i = 1

x[0], x[0] = 1, 2 // set x[0] = 1, then x[0] = 2 (so x[0] == 2 at end)

x[1], x[3] = 4, 5 // set x[1] = 4, then panic setting x[3] = 5.

type Point struct { x, y int }

var p *Point
x[2], p.x = 6, 7 // set x[2] = 6, then panic setting p.x = 7

i = 2
x = []int{3, 5, 7}
for i, x[i] = range x { // set i, x[2] = 0, x[0]
break
}
// after this loop, i == 0 and x is []int{3, 5, 3}

In assignments, each value must be assignable to the type of the operand to which it is
assigned, with the following special cases:

1. Any typed value may be assigned to the blank identifier.

2. If an untyped constant is assigned to a variable of interface type or the blank identifier,
the constant is first implicitly converted to its default type.
3. If an untyped boolean value is assigned to a variable of interface type or the blank
identifier, it is first implicitly converted to type bool.

When a value is assigned to a variable, only the data that is stored in the variable is
replaced. If the value contains a reference, the assignment copies the reference but does
not make a copy of the referenced data (such as the underlying array of a slice).

var s1 = []int{1, 2, 3}
var s2 = s1 // s2 stores the slice descriptor of s1
s1 = s1[:1] // s1's length is 1 but it still shares its underlying ar
s2[0] = 42 // setting s2[0] changes s1[0] as well
fmt.Println(s1, s2) // prints [42] [42 2 3]

var m1 = make(map[string]int)
var m2 = m1 // m2 stores the map descriptor of m1
m1["foo"] = 42 // setting m1["foo"] changes m2["foo"] as well
fmt.Println(m2["foo"]) // prints 42

If statements

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"If" statements specify the conditional execution of two branches according to the value of a
boolean expression. If the expression evaluates to true, the "if" branch is executed,
otherwise, if present, the "else" branch is executed.

IfStmt = "if" [ SimpleStmt ";" ] Expression Block [ "else" ( IfStmt | Block ) ] .

if x > max {
x = max
}

The expression may be preceded by a simple statement, which executes before the
expression is evaluated.

if x := f(); x < y {
return x
} else if x > z {
return z
} else {
return y
}

Switch statements

"Switch" statements provide multi-way execution. An expression or type is compared to the

"cases" inside the "switch" to determine which branch to execute.

SwitchStmt = ExprSwitchStmt | TypeSwitchStmt .

There are two forms: expression switches and type switches. In an expression switch, the
cases contain expressions that are compared against the value of the switch expression. In
a type switch, the cases contain types that are compared against the type of a specially
annotated switch expression. The switch expression is evaluated exactly once in a switch
statement.

Expression switches

In an expression switch, the switch expression is evaluated and the case expressions,
which need not be constants, are evaluated left-to-right and top-to-bottom; the first one that
equals the switch expression triggers execution of the statements of the associated case;
the other cases are skipped. If no case matches and there is a "default" case, its
statements are executed. There can be at most one default case and it may appear
anywhere in the "switch" statement. A missing switch expression is equivalent to the
boolean value true.

ExprSwitchStmt = "switch" [ SimpleStmt ";" ] [ Expression ] "{" { ExprCaseClause

ExprCaseClause = ExprSwitchCase ":" StatementList .
ExprSwitchCase = "case" ExpressionList | "default" .

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If the switch expression evaluates to an untyped constant, it is first implicitly converted to its
default type. The predeclared untyped value nil cannot be used as a switch expression.
The switch expression type must be comparable.

If a case expression is untyped, it is first implicitly converted to the type of the switch
expression. For each (possibly converted) case expression x and the value t of the switch
expression, x == t must be a valid comparison.

In other words, the switch expression is treated as if it were used to declare and initialize a
temporary variable t without explicit type; it is that value of t against which each case
expression x is tested for equality.

In a case or default clause, the last non-empty statement may be a (possibly labeled)
"fallthrough" statement to indicate that control should flow from the end of this clause to the
first statement of the next clause. Otherwise control flows to the end of the "switch"
statement. A "fallthrough" statement may appear as the last statement of all but the last
clause of an expression switch.

The switch expression may be preceded by a simple statement, which executes before the
expression is evaluated.

switch tag {
default: s3()
case 0, 1, 2, 3: s1()
case 4, 5, 6, 7: s2()
}

switch x := f(); { // missing switch expression means "true"

case x < 0: return -x
default: return x
}

switch {
case x < y: f1()
case x < z: f2()
case x == 4: f3()
}

Implementation restriction: A compiler may disallow multiple case expressions evaluating to

the same constant. For instance, the current compilers disallow duplicate integer, floating
point, or string constants in case expressions.

Type switches

A type switch compares types rather than values. It is otherwise similar to an expression
switch. It is marked by a special switch expression that has the form of a type assertion
using the keyword type rather than an actual type:

switch x.(type) {

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// cases
}

Cases then match actual types T against the dynamic type of the expression x. As with type
assertions, x must be of interface type, but not a type parameter, and each non-interface
type T listed in a case must implement the type of x. The types listed in the cases of a type
switch must all be different.

TypeSwitchStmt = "switch" [ SimpleStmt ";" ] TypeSwitchGuard "{" { TypeCaseClause

TypeSwitchGuard = [ identifier ":=" ] PrimaryExpr "." "(" "type" ")" .
TypeCaseClause = TypeSwitchCase ":" StatementList .
TypeSwitchCase = "case" TypeList | "default" .

The TypeSwitchGuard may include a short variable declaration. When that form is used, the
variable is declared at the end of the TypeSwitchCase in the implicit block of each clause.
In clauses with a case listing exactly one type, the variable has that type; otherwise, the
variable has the type of the expression in the TypeSwitchGuard.

Instead of a type, a case may use the predeclared identifier nil; that case is selected when
the expression in the TypeSwitchGuard is a nil interface value. There may be at most one
nil case.

Given an expression x of type interface{}, the following type switch:

switch i := x.(type) {
case nil:
printString("x is nil") // type of i is type of x (interface{})
case int:
printInt(i) // type of i is int
case float64:
printFloat64(i) // type of i is float64
case func(int) float64:
printFunction(i) // type of i is func(int) float64
case bool, string:
printString("type is bool or string") // type of i is type of x (interface{})
default:
printString("don't know the type") // type of i is type of x (interface{})
}

could be rewritten:

v := x // x is evaluated exactly once

if v == nil {
i := v // type of i is type of x (interface{})
printString("x is nil")
} else if i, isInt := v.(int); isInt {
printInt(i) // type of i is int
} else if i, isFloat64 := v.(float64); isFloat64 {
printFloat64(i) // type of i is float64
} else if i, isFunc := v.(func(int) float64); isFunc {

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printFunction(i) // type of i is func(int) float64

} else {
_, isBool := v.(bool)
_, isString := v.(string)
if isBool || isString {
i := v // type of i is type of x (interface{})
printString("type is bool or string")
} else {
i := v // type of i is type of x (interface{})
printString("don't know the type")
}
}

A type parameter or a generic type may be used as a type in a case. If upon instantiation
that type turns out to duplicate another entry in the switch, the first matching case is
chosen.

func f[P any](x any) int {

switch x.(type) {
case P:
return 0
case string:
return 1
case []P:
return 2
case []byte:
return 3
default:
return 4
}
}

var v1 = f[string]("foo") // v1 == 0
var v2 = f[byte]([]byte{}) // v2 == 2

The type switch guard may be preceded by a simple statement, which executes before the
guard is evaluated.

The "fallthrough" statement is not permitted in a type switch.

For statements

A "for" statement specifies repeated execution of a block. There are three forms: The
iteration may be controlled by a single condition, a "for" clause, or a "range" clause.

ForStmt = "for" [ Condition | ForClause | RangeClause ] Block .

Condition = Expression .

For statements with single condition

In its simplest form, a "for" statement specifies the repeated execution of a block as long as

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a boolean condition evaluates to true. The condition is evaluated before each iteration. If
the condition is absent, it is equivalent to the boolean value true.

for a < b {
a *= 2
}

For statements with for clause

A "for" statement with a ForClause is also controlled by its condition, but additionally it may
specify an init and a post statement, such as an assignment, an increment or decrement
statement. The init statement may be a short variable declaration, but the post statement
must not.

ForClause = [ InitStmt ] ";" [ Condition ] ";" [ PostStmt ] .

InitStmt = SimpleStmt .
PostStmt = SimpleStmt .

for i := 0; i < 10; i++ {

f(i)
}

If non-empty, the init statement is executed once before evaluating the condition for the first
iteration; the post statement is executed after each execution of the block (and only if the
block was executed). Any element of the ForClause may be empty but the semicolons are
required unless there is only a condition. If the condition is absent, it is equivalent to the
boolean value true.

for cond { S() } is the same as for ; cond ; { S() }

for { S() } is the same as for true { S() }

Each iteration has its own separate declared variable (or variables) [Go 1.22]. The variable
used by the first iteration is declared by the init statement. The variable used by each
subsequent iteration is declared implicitly before executing the post statement and
initialized to the value of the previous iteration's variable at that moment.

var prints []func()

for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
prints = append(prints, func() { println(i) })
i++
}
for _, p := range prints {
p()
}

prints

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3
5

Prior to [Go 1.22], iterations share one set of variables instead of having their own separate
variables. In that case, the example above prints

6
6
6

For statements with range clause

A "for" statement with a "range" clause iterates through all entries of an array, slice, string
or map, values received on a channel, integer values from zero to an upper limit [Go 1.22],
or values passed to an iterator function's yield function [Go 1.23]. For each entry it assigns
iteration values to corresponding iteration variables if present and then executes the block.

RangeClause = [ ExpressionList "=" | IdentifierList ":=" ] "range" Expression .

The expression on the right in the "range" clause is called the range expression, its core
type must be an array, pointer to an array, slice, string, map, channel permitting receive
operations, an integer, or a function with specific signature (see below). As with an
assignment, if present the operands on the left must be addressable or map index
expressions; they denote the iteration variables. If the range expression is a function, the
maximum number of iteration variables depends on the function signature. If the range
expression is a channel or integer, at most one iteration variable is permitted; otherwise
there may be up to two. If the last iteration variable is the blank identifier, the range clause
is equivalent to the same clause without that identifier.

The range expression x is evaluated before beginning the loop, with one exception: if at
most one iteration variable is present and x or len(x) is constant, the range expression is
not evaluated.

Function calls on the left are evaluated once per iteration. For each iteration, iteration
values are produced as follows if the respective iteration variables are present:

Range expression 1st value 2nd valu

array or slice a [n]E, *[n]E, or []E index i int a[i]

string s string type index i int see belo
map m map[K]V key k K m[k]
channel c chan E, <-chan E element e E
integer value n integer type, or untyped int value i see below
function, 0 values f func(func() bool)
function, 1 value f func(func(V) bool) value v V
function, 2 values f func(func(K, V) bool) key k K v

1. For an array, pointer to array, or slice value a, the index iteration values are produced

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in increasing order, starting at element index 0. If at most one iteration variable is

present, the range loop produces iteration values from 0 up to len(a)-1 and does
not index into the array or slice itself. For a nil slice, the number of iterations is 0.
2. For a string value, the "range" clause iterates over the Unicode code points in the
string starting at byte index 0. On successive iterations, the index value will be the
index of the first byte of successive UTF-8-encoded code points in the string, and the
second value, of type rune, will be the value of the corresponding code point. If the
iteration encounters an invalid UTF-8 sequence, the second value will be 0xFFFD, the
Unicode replacement character, and the next iteration will advance a single byte in the
string.
3. The iteration order over maps is not specified and is not guaranteed to be the same
from one iteration to the next. If a map entry that has not yet been reached is removed
during iteration, the corresponding iteration value will not be produced. If a map entry
is created during iteration, that entry may be produced during the iteration or may be
skipped. The choice may vary for each entry created and from one iteration to the
next. If the map is nil, the number of iterations is 0.
4. For channels, the iteration values produced are the successive values sent on the
channel until the channel is closed. If the channel is nil, the range expression blocks
forever.
5. For an integer value n, where n is of integer type or an untyped integer constant, the
iteration values 0 through n-1 are produced in increasing order. If n is of integer type,
the iteration values have that same type. Otherwise, the type of n is determined as if it
were assigned to the iteration variable. Specifically: if the iteration variable is
preexisting, the type of the iteration values is the type of the iteration variable, which
must be of integer type. Otherwise, if the iteration variable is declared by the "range"
clause or is absent, the type of the iteration values is the default type for n. If n <= 0,
the loop does not run any iterations.
6. For a function f, the iteration proceeds by calling f with a new, synthesized yield
function as its argument. If yield is called before f returns, the arguments to yield
become the iteration values for executing the loop body once. After each successive
loop iteration, yield returns true and may be called again to continue the loop. As
long as the loop body does not terminate, the "range" clause will continue to generate
iteration values this way for each yield call until f returns. If the loop body
terminates (such as by a break statement), yield returns false and must not be
called again.

The iteration variables may be declared by the "range" clause using a form of short variable
declaration (:=). In this case their scope is the block of the "for" statement and each
iteration has its own new variables [Go 1.22] (see also "for" statements with a ForClause).
The variables have the types of their respective iteration values.

If the iteration variables are not explicitly declared by the "range" clause, they must be
preexisting. In this case, the iteration values are assigned to the respective variables as in
an assignment statement.

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var testdata *struct {

a *[7]int
}
for i, _ := range testdata.a {
// testdata.a is never evaluated; len(testdata.a) is constant
// i ranges from 0 to 6
f(i)
}

var a [10]string
for i, s := range a {
// type of i is int
// type of s is string
// s == a[i]
g(i, s)
}

var key string

var val interface{} // element type of m is assignable to val
m := map[string]int{"mon":0, "tue":1, "wed":2, "thu":3, "fri":4, "sat":5, "sun":6}
for key, val = range m {
h(key, val)
}
// key == last map key encountered in iteration
// val == map[key]

var ch chan Work = producer()

for w := range ch {
doWork(w)
}

// empty a channel
for range ch {}

// call f(0), f(1), ... f(9)

for i := range 10 {
// type of i is int (default type for untyped constant 10)
f(i)
}

// invalid: 256 cannot be assigned to uint8

var u uint8
for u = range 256 {
}

// invalid: 1e3 is a floating-point constant

for range 1e3 {
}

// fibo generates the Fibonacci sequence

fibo := func(yield func(x int) bool) {
f0, f1 := 0, 1
for yield(f0) {
f0, f1 = f1, f0+f1

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}
}

// print the Fibonacci numbers below 1000:

for x := range fibo {
if x >= 1000 {
break
}
fmt.Printf("%d ", x)
}
// output: 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987

// iteration support for a recursive tree data structure

type Tree[K cmp.Ordered, V any] struct {
left, right *Tree[K, V]
key K
value V
}

func (t *Tree[K, V]) walk(yield func(key K, val V) bool) bool {

return t == nil || t.left.walk(yield) && yield(t.key, t.value) && t.right.walk(y
}

func (t *Tree[K, V]) Walk(yield func(key K, val V) bool) {

t.walk(yield)
}

// walk tree t in-order

var t Tree[string, int]
for k, v := range t.Walk {
// process k, v
}

Go statements

A "go" statement starts the execution of a function call as an independent concurrent thread
of control, or goroutine, within the same address space.

GoStmt = "go" Expression .

The expression must be a function or method call; it cannot be parenthesized. Calls of built-
in functions are restricted as for expression statements.

The function value and parameters are evaluated as usual in the calling goroutine, but
unlike with a regular call, program execution does not wait for the invoked function to
complete. Instead, the function begins executing independently in a new goroutine. When
the function terminates, its goroutine also terminates. If the function has any return values,
they are discarded when the function completes.

go Server()
go func(ch chan<- bool) { for { sleep(10); ch <- true }} (c)

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Select statements

A "select" statement chooses which of a set of possible send or receive operations will
proceed. It looks similar to a "switch" statement but with the cases all referring to
communication operations.

SelectStmt = "select" "{" { CommClause } "}" .

CommClause = CommCase ":" StatementList .
CommCase = "case" ( SendStmt | RecvStmt ) | "default" .
RecvStmt = [ ExpressionList "=" | IdentifierList ":=" ] RecvExpr .
RecvExpr = Expression .

A case with a RecvStmt may assign the result of a RecvExpr to one or two variables, which
may be declared using a short variable declaration. The RecvExpr must be a (possibly
parenthesized) receive operation. There can be at most one default case and it may appear
anywhere in the list of cases.

Execution of a "select" statement proceeds in several steps:

1. For all the cases in the statement, the channel operands of receive operations and the
channel and right-hand-side expressions of send statements are evaluated exactly
once, in source order, upon entering the "select" statement. The result is a set of
channels to receive from or send to, and the corresponding values to send. Any side
effects in that evaluation will occur irrespective of which (if any) communication
operation is selected to proceed. Expressions on the left-hand side of a RecvStmt with
a short variable declaration or assignment are not yet evaluated.
2. If one or more of the communications can proceed, a single one that can proceed is
chosen via a uniform pseudo-random selection. Otherwise, if there is a default case,
that case is chosen. If there is no default case, the "select" statement blocks until at
least one of the communications can proceed.
3. Unless the selected case is the default case, the respective communication operation
is executed.
4. If the selected case is a RecvStmt with a short variable declaration or an assignment,
the left-hand side expressions are evaluated and the received value (or values) are
assigned.
5. The statement list of the selected case is executed.

Since communication on nil channels can never proceed, a select with only nil channels
and no default case blocks forever.

var a []int
var c, c1, c2, c3, c4 chan int
var i1, i2 int
select {
case i1 = <-c1:
print("received ", i1, " from c1\n")
case c2 <- i2:
print("sent ", i2, " to c2\n")

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case i3, ok := (<-c3): // same as: i3, ok := <-c3

if ok {
print("received ", i3, " from c3\n")
} else {
print("c3 is closed\n")
}
case a[f()] = <-c4:
// same as:
// case t := <-c4
// a[f()] = t
default:
print("no communication\n")
}

for { // send random sequence of bits to c

select {
case c <- 0: // note: no statement, no fallthrough, no folding of cases
case c <- 1:
}
}

select {} // block forever

Return statements

A "return" statement in a function F terminates the execution of F, and optionally provides

one or more result values. Any functions deferred by F are executed before F returns to its
caller.

ReturnStmt = "return" [ ExpressionList ] .

In a function without a result type, a "return" statement must not specify any result values.

func noResult() {
return
}

There are three ways to return values from a function with a result type:

1. The return value or values may be explicitly listed in the "return" statement. Each
expression must be single-valued and assignable to the corresponding element of the
function's result type.

func simpleF() int {

return 2
}

func complexF1() (re float64, im float64) {

return -7.0, -4.0
}

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2. The expression list in the "return" statement may be a single call to a multi-valued
function. The effect is as if each value returned from that function were assigned to a
temporary variable with the type of the respective value, followed by a "return"
statement listing these variables, at which point the rules of the previous case apply.

func complexF2() (re float64, im float64) {

return complexF1()
}

3. The expression list may be empty if the function's result type specifies names for its
result parameters. The result parameters act as ordinary local variables and the
function may assign values to them as necessary. The "return" statement returns the
values of these variables.

func complexF3() (re float64, im float64) {

re = 7.0
im = 4.0
return
}

func (devnull) Write(p []byte) (n int, _ error) {

n = len(p)
return
}

Regardless of how they are declared, all the result values are initialized to the zero values
for their type upon entry to the function. A "return" statement that specifies results sets the
result parameters before any deferred functions are executed.

Implementation restriction: A compiler may disallow an empty expression list in a "return"

statement if a different entity (constant, type, or variable) with the same name as a result
parameter is in scope at the place of the return.

func f(n int) (res int, err error) {

if _, err := f(n-1); err != nil {
return // invalid return statement: err is shadowed
}
return
}

Break statements

A "break" statement terminates execution of the innermost "for", "switch", or "select"

statement within the same function.

BreakStmt = "break" [ Label ] .

If there is a label, it must be that of an enclosing "for", "switch", or "select" statement, and
that is the one whose execution terminates.

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OuterLoop:
for i = 0; i < n; i++ {
for j = 0; j < m; j++ {
switch a[i][j] {
case nil:
state = Error
break OuterLoop
case item:
state = Found
break OuterLoop
}
}
}

Continue statements

A "continue" statement begins the next iteration of the innermost enclosing "for" loop by
advancing control to the end of the loop block. The "for" loop must be within the same
function.

ContinueStmt = "continue" [ Label ] .

If there is a label, it must be that of an enclosing "for" statement, and that is the one whose
execution advances.

RowLoop:
for y, row := range rows {
for x, data := range row {
if data == endOfRow {
continue RowLoop
}
row[x] = data + bias(x, y)
}
}

Goto statements

A "goto" statement transfers control to the statement with the corresponding label within the
same function.

GotoStmt = "goto" Label .

goto Error

Executing the "goto" statement must not cause any variables to come into scope that were
not already in scope at the point of the goto. For instance, this example:

goto L // BAD
v := 3

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L:

is erroneous because the jump to label L skips the creation of v.

A "goto" statement outside a block cannot jump to a label inside that block. For instance,
this example:

if n%2 == 1 {
goto L1
}
for n > 0 {
f()
n--
L1:
f()
n--
}

is erroneous because the label L1 is inside the "for" statement's block but the goto is not.

Fallthrough statements

A "fallthrough" statement transfers control to the first statement of the next case clause in
an expression "switch" statement. It may be used only as the final non-empty statement in
such a clause.

FallthroughStmt = "fallthrough" .

Defer statements

A "defer" statement invokes a function whose execution is deferred to the moment the
surrounding function returns, either because the surrounding function executed a return
statement, reached the end of its function body, or because the corresponding goroutine is
panicking.

DeferStmt = "defer" Expression .

The expression must be a function or method call; it cannot be parenthesized. Calls of built-
in functions are restricted as for expression statements.

Each time a "defer" statement executes, the function value and parameters to the call are
evaluated as usual and saved anew but the actual function is not invoked. Instead, deferred
functions are invoked immediately before the surrounding function returns, in the reverse
order they were deferred. That is, if the surrounding function returns through an explicit
return statement, deferred functions are executed after any result parameters are set by
that return statement but before the function returns to its caller. If a deferred function value
evaluates to nil, execution panics when the function is invoked, not when the "defer"
statement is executed.

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For instance, if the deferred function is a function literal and the surrounding function has
named result parameters that are in scope within the literal, the deferred function may
access and modify the result parameters before they are returned. If the deferred function
has any return values, they are discarded when the function completes. (See also the
section on handling panics.)

lock(l)
defer unlock(l) // unlocking happens before surrounding function returns

// prints 3 2 1 0 before surrounding function returns

for i := 0; i <= 3; i++ {
defer fmt.Print(i)
}

// f returns 42
func f() (result int) {
defer func() {
// result is accessed after it was set to 6 by the return statement
result *= 7
}()
return 6
}

Built-in functions
Built-in functions are predeclared. They are called like any other function but some of them
accept a type instead of an expression as the first argument.

The built-in functions do not have standard Go types, so they can only appear in call
expressions; they cannot be used as function values.

Appending to and copying slices

The built-in functions append and copy assist in common slice operations. For both
functions, the result is independent of whether the memory referenced by the arguments
overlaps.

The variadic function append appends zero or more values x to a slice s and returns the
resulting slice of the same type as s. The core type of s must be a slice of type []E. The
values x are passed to a parameter of type ...E and the respective parameter passing
rules apply. As a special case, if the core type of s is []byte, append also accepts a
second argument with core type bytestring followed by .... This form appends the
bytes of the byte slice or string.

append(s S, x ...E) S // core type of S is []E

If the capacity of s is not large enough to fit the additional values, append allocates a new,
sufficiently large underlying array that fits both the existing slice elements and the additional

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values. Otherwise, append re-uses the underlying array.

s0 := []int{0, 0}
s1 := append(s0, 2) // append a single element s1 is []int{0, 0, 2}
s2 := append(s1, 3, 5, 7) // append multiple elements s2 is []int{0, 0, 2, 3
s3 := append(s2, s0...) // append a slice s3 is []int{0, 0, 2, 3
s4 := append(s3[3:6], s3[2:]...) // append overlapping slice s4 is []int{3, 5, 7, 2

var t []interface{}
t = append(t, 42, 3.1415, "foo") // t is []interface{}{42,

var b []byte
b = append(b, "bar"...) // append string contents b is []byte{'b', 'a',

The function copy copies slice elements from a source src to a destination dst and
returns the number of elements copied. The core types of both arguments must be slices
with identical element type. The number of elements copied is the minimum of len(src)
and len(dst). As a special case, if the destination's core type is []byte, copy also
accepts a source argument with core type bytestring. This form copies the bytes from
the byte slice or string into the byte slice.

copy(dst, src []T) int

copy(dst []byte, src string) int

Examples:

var a = [...]int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}
var s = make([]int, 6)
var b = make([]byte, 5)
n1 := copy(s, a[0:]) // n1 == 6, s is []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
n2 := copy(s, s[2:]) // n2 == 4, s is []int{2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5}
n3 := copy(b, "Hello, World!") // n3 == 5, b is []byte("Hello")

Clear

The built-in function clear takes an argument of map, slice, or type parameter type, and
deletes or zeroes out all elements [Go 1.21].

Call Argument type Result

clear(m) map[K]T deletes all entries, resulting in an

empty map (len(m) == 0)

clear(s) []T sets all elements up to the length of

s to the zero value of T

clear(t) type parameter see below

If the type of the argument to clear is a type parameter, all types in its type set must be

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maps or slices, and clear performs the operation corresponding to the actual type
argument.

If the map or slice is nil, clear is a no-op.

Close

For an argument ch with a core type that is a channel, the built-in function close records
that no more values will be sent on the channel. It is an error if ch is a receive-only channel.
Sending to or closing a closed channel causes a run-time panic. Closing the nil channel
also causes a run-time panic. After calling close, and after any previously sent values
have been received, receive operations will return the zero value for the channel's type
without blocking. The multi-valued receive operation returns a received value along with an
indication of whether the channel is closed.

Manipulating complex numbers

Three functions assemble and disassemble complex numbers. The built-in function
complex constructs a complex value from a floating-point real and imaginary part, while
real and imag extract the real and imaginary parts of a complex value.

complex(realPart, imaginaryPart floatT) complexT

real(complexT) floatT
imag(complexT) floatT

The type of the arguments and return value correspond. For complex, the two arguments
must be of the same floating-point type and the return type is the complex type with the
corresponding floating-point constituents: complex64 for float32 arguments, and
complex128 for float64 arguments. If one of the arguments evaluates to an untyped
constant, it is first implicitly converted to the type of the other argument. If both arguments
evaluate to untyped constants, they must be non-complex numbers or their imaginary parts
must be zero, and the return value of the function is an untyped complex constant.

For real and imag, the argument must be of complex type, and the return type is the
corresponding floating-point type: float32 for a complex64 argument, and float64 for
a complex128 argument. If the argument evaluates to an untyped constant, it must be a
number, and the return value of the function is an untyped floating-point constant.

The real and imag functions together form the inverse of complex, so for a value z of a
complex type Z, z == Z(complex(real(z), imag(z))).

If the operands of these functions are all constants, the return value is a constant.

var a = complex(2, -2) // complex128

const b = complex(1.0, -1.4) // untyped complex constant 1 - 1.4i
x := float32(math.Cos(math.Pi/2)) // float32
var c64 = complex(5, -x) // complex64

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var s int = complex(1, 0) // untyped complex constant 1 + 0i can be converted t

_ = complex(1, 2<<s) // illegal: 2 assumes floating-point type, cannot shi
var rl = real(c64) // float32
var im = imag(a) // float64
const c = imag(b) // untyped constant -1.4
_ = imag(3 << s) // illegal: 3 assumes complex type, cannot shift

Arguments of type parameter type are not permitted.

Deletion of map elements

The built-in function delete removes the element with key k from a map m. The value k
must be assignable to the key type of m.

delete(m, k) // remove element m[k] from map m

If the type of m is a type parameter, all types in that type set must be maps, and they must
all have identical key types.

If the map m is nil or the element m[k] does not exist, delete is a no-op.

Length and capacity

The built-in functions len and cap take arguments of various types and return a result of
type int. The implementation guarantees that the result always fits into an int.

Call Argument type Result

len(s) string type string length in bytes

[n]T, *[n]T array length (== n)
[]T slice length
map[K]T map length (number of defined keys)
chan T number of elements queued in channel buffer
type parameter see below

cap(s) [n]T, *[n]T array length (== n)

[]T slice capacity
chan T channel buffer capacity
type parameter see below

If the argument type is a type parameter P, the call len(e) (or cap(e) respectively) must
be valid for each type in P's type set. The result is the length (or capacity, respectively) of
the argument whose type corresponds to the type argument with which P was instantiated.

The capacity of a slice is the number of elements for which there is space allocated in the
underlying array. At any time the following relationship holds:

0 <= len(s) <= cap(s)

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The length of a nil slice, map or channel is 0. The capacity of a nil slice or channel is 0.

The expression len(s) is constant if s is a string constant. The expressions len(s) and
cap(s) are constants if the type of s is an array or pointer to an array and the expression s
does not contain channel receives or (non-constant) function calls; in this case s is not
evaluated. Otherwise, invocations of len and cap are not constant and s is evaluated.

const (
c1 = imag(2i) // imag(2i) = 2.0 is a constant
c2 = len([10]float64{2}) // [10]float64{2} contains no function calls
c3 = len([10]float64{c1}) // [10]float64{c1} contains no function calls
c4 = len([10]float64{imag(2i)}) // imag(2i) is a constant and no function call
c5 = len([10]float64{imag(z)}) // invalid: imag(z) is a (non-constant) functio
)
var z complex128

Making slices, maps and channels

The built-in function make takes a type T, optionally followed by a type-specific list of
expressions. The core type of T must be a slice, map or channel. It returns a value of type T
(not *T). The memory is initialized as described in the section on initial values.

Call Core type Result

make(T, n) slice slice of type T with length n and capacity n

make(T, n, m) slice slice of type T with length n and capacity m

make(T) map map of type T

make(T, n) map map of type T with initial space for approximately n eleme

make(T) channel unbuffered channel of type T

make(T, n) channel buffered channel of type T, buffer size n

Each of the size arguments n and m must be of integer type, have a type set containing only
integer types, or be an untyped constant. A constant size argument must be non-negative
and representable by a value of type int; if it is an untyped constant it is given type int. If
both n and m are provided and are constant, then n must be no larger than m. For slices and
channels, if n is negative or larger than m at run time, a run-time panic occurs.

s := make([]int, 10, 100) // slice with len(s) == 10, cap(s) == 100

s := make([]int, 1e3) // slice with len(s) == cap(s) == 1000
s := make([]int, 1<<63) // illegal: len(s) is not representable by a value of ty
s := make([]int, 10, 0) // illegal: len(s) > cap(s)
c := make(chan int, 10) // channel with a buffer size of 10
m := make(map[string]int, 100) // map with initial space for approximately 100 elements

Calling make with a map type and size hint n will create a map with initial space to hold n
map elements. The precise behavior is implementation-dependent.

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Min and max

The built-in functions min and max compute the smallest—or largest, respectively—value of
a fixed number of arguments of ordered types. There must be at least one argument [Go
1.21].

The same type rules as for operators apply: for ordered arguments x and y, min(x, y) is
valid if x + y is valid, and the type of min(x, y) is the type of x + y (and similarly for max).
If all arguments are constant, the result is constant.

var x, y int
m := min(x) // m == x
m := min(x, y) // m is the smaller of x and y
m := max(x, y, 10) // m is the larger of x and y but at least 10
c := max(1, 2.0, 10) // c == 10.0 (floating-point kind)
f := max(0, float32(x)) // type of f is float32
var s []string
_ = min(s...) // invalid: slice arguments are not permitted
t := max("", "foo", "bar") // t == "foo" (string kind)

For numeric arguments, assuming all NaNs are equal, min and max are commutative and
associative:

min(x, y) == min(y, x)
min(x, y, z) == min(min(x, y), z) == min(x, min(y, z))

For floating-point arguments negative zero, NaN, and infinity the following rules apply:

x y min(x, y) max(x, y)

-0.0 0.0 -0.0 0.0 // negative zero is smaller than (non-negativ

-Inf y -Inf y // negative infinity is smaller than any othe
+Inf y y +Inf // positive infinity is larger than any other
NaN y NaN NaN // if any argument is a NaN, the result is a

For string arguments the result for min is the first argument with the smallest (or for max,
largest) value, compared lexically byte-wise:

min(x, y) == if x <= y then x else y

min(x, y, z) == min(min(x, y), z)

Allocation

The built-in function new takes a type T, allocates storage for a variable of that type at run
time, and returns a value of type *T pointing to it. The variable is initialized as described in
the section on initial values.

new(T)

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For instance

type S struct { a int; b float64 }

new(S)

allocates storage for a variable of type S, initializes it (a=0, b=0.0), and returns a value of
type *S containing the address of the location.

Handling panics

Two built-in functions, panic and recover, assist in reporting and handling run-time
panics and program-defined error conditions.

func panic(interface{})
func recover() interface{}

While executing a function F, an explicit call to panic or a run-time panic terminates the
execution of F. Any functions deferred by F are then executed as usual. Next, any deferred
functions run by F's caller are run, and so on up to any deferred by the top-level function in
the executing goroutine. At that point, the program is terminated and the error condition is
reported, including the value of the argument to panic. This termination sequence is called
panicking.

panic(42)
panic("unreachable")
panic(Error("cannot parse"))

The recover function allows a program to manage behavior of a panicking goroutine.

Suppose a function G defers a function D that calls recover and a panic occurs in a
function on the same goroutine in which G is executing. When the running of deferred
functions reaches D, the return value of D's call to recover will be the value passed to the
call of panic. If D returns normally, without starting a new panic, the panicking sequence
stops. In that case, the state of functions called between G and the call to panic is
discarded, and normal execution resumes. Any functions deferred by G before D are then
run and G's execution terminates by returning to its caller.

The return value of recover is nil when the goroutine is not panicking or recover was
not called directly by a deferred function. Conversely, if a goroutine is panicking and
recover was called directly by a deferred function, the return value of recover is
guaranteed not to be nil. To ensure this, calling panic with a nil interface value (or an
untyped nil) causes a run-time panic.

The protect function in the example below invokes the function argument g and protects
callers from run-time panics raised by g.

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func protect(g func()) {

defer func() {
log.Println("done") // Println executes normally even if there is a pan
if x := recover(); x != nil {
log.Printf("run time panic: %v", x)
}
}()
log.Println("start")
g()
}

Bootstrapping

Current implementations provide several built-in functions useful during bootstrapping.

These functions are documented for completeness but are not guaranteed to stay in the
language. They do not return a result.

Function Behavior

print prints all arguments; formatting of arguments is implementation-specific

println like print but prints spaces between arguments and a newline at the end

Implementation restriction: print and println need not accept arbitrary argument types,
but printing of boolean, numeric, and string types must be supported.

Packages
Go programs are constructed by linking together packages. A package in turn is
constructed from one or more source files that together declare constants, types, variables
and functions belonging to the package and which are accessible in all files of the same
package. Those elements may be exported and used in another package.

Source file organization

Each source file consists of a package clause defining the package to which it belongs,
followed by a possibly empty set of import declarations that declare packages whose
contents it wishes to use, followed by a possibly empty set of declarations of functions,
types, variables, and constants.

SourceFile = PackageClause ";" { ImportDecl ";" } { TopLevelDecl ";" } .

Package clause

A package clause begins each source file and defines the package to which the file
belongs.

PackageClause = "package" PackageName .

PackageName = identifier .

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The PackageName must not be the blank identifier.

package math

A set of files sharing the same PackageName form the implementation of a package. An
implementation may require that all source files for a package inhabit the same directory.

Import declarations

An import declaration states that the source file containing the declaration depends on
functionality of the imported package (§Program initialization and execution) and enables
access to exported identifiers of that package. The import names an identifier
(PackageName) to be used for access and an ImportPath that specifies the package to be
imported.

ImportDecl = "import" ( ImportSpec | "(" { ImportSpec ";" } ")" ) .

ImportSpec = [ "." | PackageName ] ImportPath .
ImportPath = string_lit .

The PackageName is used in qualified identifiers to access exported identifiers of the

package within the importing source file. It is declared in the file block. If the PackageName
is omitted, it defaults to the identifier specified in the package clause of the imported
package. If an explicit period (.) appears instead of a name, all the package's exported
identifiers declared in that package's package block will be declared in the importing source
file's file block and must be accessed without a qualifier.

The interpretation of the ImportPath is implementation-dependent but it is typically a

substring of the full file name of the compiled package and may be relative to a repository of
installed packages.

Implementation restriction: A compiler may restrict ImportPaths to non-empty strings using

only characters belonging to Unicode's L, M, N, P, and S general categories (the Graphic
characters without spaces) and may also exclude the characters !"#$%&'()*,:;<=>?
[\]^`{|} and the Unicode replacement character U+FFFD.

Consider a compiled a package containing the package clause package math, which
exports function Sin, and installed the compiled package in the file identified by "lib/
math". This table illustrates how Sin is accessed in files that import the package after the
various types of import declaration.

Import declaration Local name of Sin

import "lib/math" math.Sin

import m "lib/math" m.Sin
import . "lib/math" Sin

An import declaration declares a dependency relation between the importing and imported

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package. It is illegal for a package to import itself, directly or indirectly, or to directly import a
package without referring to any of its exported identifiers. To import a package solely for its
side-effects (initialization), use the blank identifier as explicit package name:

import _ "lib/math"

An example package

Here is a complete Go package that implements a concurrent prime sieve.

package main

import "fmt"

// Send the sequence 2, 3, 4, … to channel 'ch'.

func generate(ch chan<- int) {
for i := 2; ; i++ {
ch <- i // Send 'i' to channel 'ch'.
}
}

// Copy the values from channel 'src' to channel 'dst',

// removing those divisible by 'prime'.
func filter(src <-chan int, dst chan<- int, prime int) {
for i := range src { // Loop over values received from 'src'.
if i%prime != 0 {
dst <- i // Send 'i' to channel 'dst'.
}
}
}

// The prime sieve: Daisy-chain filter processes together.

func sieve() {
ch := make(chan int) // Create a new channel.
go generate(ch) // Start generate() as a subprocess.
for {
prime := <-ch
fmt.Print(prime, "\n")
ch1 := make(chan int)
go filter(ch, ch1, prime)
ch = ch1
}
}

func main() {
sieve()
}

Program initialization and execution

The zero value

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When storage is allocated for a variable, either through a declaration or a call of new, or
when a new value is created, either through a composite literal or a call of make, and no
explicit initialization is provided, the variable or value is given a default value. Each element
of such a variable or value is set to the zero value for its type: false for booleans, 0 for
numeric types, "" for strings, and nil for pointers, functions, interfaces, slices, channels,
and maps. This initialization is done recursively, so for instance each element of an array of
structs will have its fields zeroed if no value is specified.

These two simple declarations are equivalent:

var i int
var i int = 0

After

type T struct { i int; f float64; next *T }

t := new(T)

the following holds:

t.i == 0
t.f == 0.0
t.next == nil

The same would also be true after

var t T

Package initialization

Within a package, package-level variable initialization proceeds stepwise, with each step
selecting the variable earliest in declaration order which has no dependencies on
uninitialized variables.

More precisely, a package-level variable is considered ready for initialization if it is not yet
initialized and either has no initialization expression or its initialization expression has no
dependencies on uninitialized variables. Initialization proceeds by repeatedly initializing the
next package-level variable that is earliest in declaration order and ready for initialization,
until there are no variables ready for initialization.

If any variables are still uninitialized when this process ends, those variables are part of one
or more initialization cycles, and the program is not valid.

Multiple variables on the left-hand side of a variable declaration initialized by single (multi-
valued) expression on the right-hand side are initialized together: If any of the variables on
the left-hand side is initialized, all those variables are initialized in the same step.

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var x = a
var a, b = f() // a and b are initialized together, before x is initialized

For the purpose of package initialization, blank variables are treated like any other variables
in declarations.

The declaration order of variables declared in multiple files is determined by the order in
which the files are presented to the compiler: Variables declared in the first file are declared
before any of the variables declared in the second file, and so on. To ensure reproducible
initialization behavior, build systems are encouraged to present multiple files belonging to
the same package in lexical file name order to a compiler.

Dependency analysis does not rely on the actual values of the variables, only on lexical
references to them in the source, analyzed transitively. For instance, if a variable x's
initialization expression refers to a function whose body refers to variable y then x depends
on y. Specifically:

• A reference to a variable or function is an identifier denoting that variable or function.

• A reference to a method m is a method value or method expression of the form t.m,
where the (static) type of t is not an interface type, and the method m is in the method
set of t. It is immaterial whether the resulting function value t.m is invoked.
• A variable, function, or method x depends on a variable y if x's initialization
expression or body (for functions and methods) contains a reference to y or to a
function or method that depends on y.

For example, given the declarations

var (
a = c + b // == 9
b = f() // == 4
c = f() // == 5
d = 3 // == 5 after initialization has finished
)

func f() int {

d++
return d
}

the initialization order is d, b, c, a. Note that the order of subexpressions in initialization

expressions is irrelevant: a = c + b and a = b + c result in the same initialization order in
this example.

Dependency analysis is performed per package; only references referring to variables,

functions, and (non-interface) methods declared in the current package are considered. If
other, hidden, data dependencies exists between variables, the initialization order between
those variables is unspecified.

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For instance, given the declarations

var x = I(T{}).ab() // x has an undetected, hidden dependency on a and b

var _ = sideEffect() // unrelated to x, a, or b
var a = b
var b = 42

type I interface { ab() []int }

type T struct{}
func (T) ab() []int { return []int{a, b} }

the variable a will be initialized after b but whether x is initialized before b, between b and
a, or after a, and thus also the moment at which sideEffect() is called (before or after x
is initialized) is not specified.

Variables may also be initialized using functions named init declared in the package
block, with no arguments and no result parameters.

func init() { … }

Multiple such functions may be defined per package, even within a single source file. In the
package block, the init identifier can be used only to declare init functions, yet the
identifier itself is not declared. Thus init functions cannot be referred to from anywhere in
a program.

The entire package is initialized by assigning initial values to all its package-level variables
followed by calling all init functions in the order they appear in the source, possibly in
multiple files, as presented to the compiler.

Program initialization

The packages of a complete program are initialized stepwise, one package at a time. If a
package has imports, the imported packages are initialized before initializing the package
itself. If multiple packages import a package, the imported package will be initialized only
once. The importing of packages, by construction, guarantees that there can be no cyclic
initialization dependencies. More precisely:

Given the list of all packages, sorted by import path, in each step the first uninitialized
package in the list for which all imported packages (if any) are already initialized is
initialized. This step is repeated until all packages are initialized.

Package initialization—variable initialization and the invocation of init functions—happens

in a single goroutine, sequentially, one package at a time. An init function may launch
other goroutines, which can run concurrently with the initialization code. However,
initialization always sequences the init functions: it will not invoke the next one until the
previous one has returned.

Program execution

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A complete program is created by linking a single, unimported package called the main
package with all the packages it imports, transitively. The main package must have
package name main and declare a function main that takes no arguments and returns no
value.

func main() { … }

Program execution begins by initializing the program and then invoking the function main in
package main. When that function invocation returns, the program exits. It does not wait for
other (non-main) goroutines to complete.

Errors
The predeclared type error is defined as

type error interface {

Error() string
}

It is the conventional interface for representing an error condition, with the nil value
representing no error. For instance, a function to read data from a file might be defined:

func Read(f *File, b []byte) (n int, err error)

Run-time panics
Execution errors such as attempting to index an array out of bounds trigger a run-time panic
equivalent to a call of the built-in function panic with a value of the implementation-defined
interface type runtime.Error. That type satisfies the predeclared interface type error.
The exact error values that represent distinct run-time error conditions are unspecified.

package runtime

type Error interface {

error
// and perhaps other methods
}

System considerations
Package unsafe

The built-in package unsafe, known to the compiler and accessible through the import
path "unsafe", provides facilities for low-level programming including operations that
violate the type system. A package using unsafe must be vetted manually for type safety
and may not be portable. The package provides the following interface:

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package unsafe

type ArbitraryType int // shorthand for an arbitrary Go type; it is not a real type
type Pointer *ArbitraryType

func Alignof(variable ArbitraryType) uintptr

func Offsetof(selector ArbitraryType) uintptr
func Sizeof(variable ArbitraryType) uintptr

type IntegerType int // shorthand for an integer type; it is not a real type
func Add(ptr Pointer, len IntegerType) Pointer
func Slice(ptr *ArbitraryType, len IntegerType) []ArbitraryType
func SliceData(slice []ArbitraryType) *ArbitraryType
func String(ptr *byte, len IntegerType) string
func StringData(str string) *byte

A Pointer is a pointer type but a Pointer value may not be dereferenced. Any pointer or
value of core type uintptr can be converted to a type of core type Pointer and vice
versa. The effect of converting between Pointer and uintptr is implementation-defined.

var f float64
bits = *(*uint64)(unsafe.Pointer(&f))

type ptr unsafe.Pointer

bits = *(*uint64)(ptr(&f))

func f[P ~*B, B any](p P) uintptr {

return uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(p))
}

var p ptr = nil

The functions Alignof and Sizeof take an expression x of any type and return the
alignment or size, respectively, of a hypothetical variable v as if v were declared via var v
= x.

The function Offsetof takes a (possibly parenthesized) selector s.f, denoting a field f of
the struct denoted by s or *s, and returns the field offset in bytes relative to the struct's
address. If f is an embedded field, it must be reachable without pointer indirections through
fields of the struct. For a struct s with field f:

uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&s)) + unsafe.Offsetof(s.f) == uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&s.f))

Computer architectures may require memory addresses to be aligned; that is, for addresses
of a variable to be a multiple of a factor, the variable's type's alignment. The function
Alignof takes an expression denoting a variable of any type and returns the alignment of
the (type of the) variable in bytes. For a variable x:

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uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&x)) % unsafe.Alignof(x) == 0

A (variable of) type T has variable size if T is a type parameter, or if it is an array or struct
type containing elements or fields of variable size. Otherwise the size is constant. Calls to
Alignof, Offsetof, and Sizeof are compile-time constant expressions of type
uintptr if their arguments (or the struct s in the selector expression s.f for Offsetof)
are types of constant size.

The function Add adds len to ptr and returns the updated pointer
unsafe.Pointer(uintptr(ptr) + uintptr(len)) [Go 1.17]. The len argument
must be of integer type or an untyped constant. A constant len argument must be
representable by a value of type int; if it is an untyped constant it is given type int. The
rules for valid uses of Pointer still apply.

The function Slice returns a slice whose underlying array starts at ptr and whose length
and capacity are len. Slice(ptr, len) is equivalent to

(*[len]ArbitraryType)(unsafe.Pointer(ptr))[:]

except that, as a special case, if ptr is nil and len is zero, Slice returns nil [Go 1.17].

The len argument must be of integer type or an untyped constant. A constant len
argument must be non-negative and representable by a value of type int; if it is an
untyped constant it is given type int. At run time, if len is negative, or if ptr is nil and
len is not zero, a run-time panic occurs [Go 1.17].

The function SliceData returns a pointer to the underlying array of the slice argument. If
the slice's capacity cap(slice) is not zero, that pointer is &slice[:1][0]. If slice is
nil, the result is nil. Otherwise it is a non-nil pointer to an unspecified memory address
[Go 1.20].

The function String returns a string value whose underlying bytes start at ptr and
whose length is len. The same requirements apply to the ptr and len argument as in the
function Slice. If len is zero, the result is the empty string "". Since Go strings are
immutable, the bytes passed to String must not be modified afterwards. [Go 1.20]

The function StringData returns a pointer to the underlying bytes of the str argument.
For an empty string the return value is unspecified, and may be nil. Since Go strings are
immutable, the bytes returned by StringData must not be modified [Go 1.20].

Size and alignment guarantees

For the numeric types, the following sizes are guaranteed:

type size in bytes

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byte, uint8, int8 1

uint16, int16 2
uint32, int32, float32 4
uint64, int64, float64, complex64 8
complex128 16

The following minimal alignment properties are guaranteed:

1. For a variable x of any type: unsafe.Alignof(x) is at least 1.

2. For a variable x of struct type: unsafe.Alignof(x) is the largest of all the values
unsafe.Alignof(x.f) for each field f of x, but at least 1.
3. For a variable x of array type: unsafe.Alignof(x) is the same as the alignment of
a variable of the array's element type.

A struct or array type has size zero if it contains no fields (or elements, respectively) that
have a size greater than zero. Two distinct zero-size variables may have the same address
in memory.

Appendix
Language versions

The Go 1 compatibility guarantee ensures that programs written to the Go 1 specification

will continue to compile and run correctly, unchanged, over the lifetime of that specification.
More generally, as adjustments are made and features added to the language, the
compatibility guarantee ensures that a Go program that works with a specific Go language
version will continue to work with any subsequent version.

For instance, the ability to use the prefix 0b for binary integer literals was introduced with
Go 1.13, indicated by [Go 1.13] in the section on integer literals. Source code containing an
integer literal such as 0b1011 will be rejected if the implied or required language version
used by the compiler is older than Go 1.13.

The following table describes the minimum language version required for features
introduced after Go 1.

Go 1.9

• An alias declaration may be used to declare an alias name for a type.

Go 1.13

• Integer literals may use the prefixes 0b, 0B, 0o, and 0O for binary, and octal literals,
respectively.
• Hexadecimal floating-point literals may be written using the prefixes 0x and 0X.
• The imaginary suffix i may be used with any (binary, decimal, hexadecimal) integer or
floating-point literal, not just decimal literals.

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• The digits of any number literal may be separated (grouped) using underscores _.
• The shift count in a shift operation may be a signed integer type.

Go 1.14

• Emdedding a method more than once through different embedded interfaces is not an
error.

Go 1.17

• A slice may be converted to an array pointer if the slice and array element types
match, and the array is not longer than the slice.
• The built-in package unsafe includes the new functions Add and Slice.

Go 1.18

The 1.18 release adds polymorphic functions and types ("generics") to the language.
Specifically:

• The set of operators and punctuation includes the new token ~.

• Function and type declarations may declare type parameters.
• Interface types may embed arbitrary types (not just type names of interfaces) as well
as union and ~T type elements.
• The set of predeclared types includes the new types any and comparable.

Go 1.20

• A slice may be converted to an array if the slice and array element types match and
the array is not longer than the slice.
• The built-in package unsafe includes the new functions SliceData, String, and
StringData.
• Comparable types (such as ordinary interfaces) may satisfy comparable constraints,
even if the type arguments are not strictly comparable.

Go 1.21

• The set of predeclared functions includes the new functions min, max, and clear.
• Type inference uses the types of interface methods for inference. It also infers type
arguments for generic functions assigned to variables or passed as arguments to
other (possibly generic) functions.

Go 1.22

• In a "for" statement, each iteration has its own set of iteration variables rather than
sharing the same variables in each iteration.
• A "for" statement with "range" clause may iterate over integer values from zero to an
upper limit.

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Go 1.23

• A "for" statement with "range" clause accepts an iterator function as range expression.

Go 1.24

• An alias declaration may declare type parameters.

Type unification rules

The type unification rules describe if and how two types unify. The precise details are
relevant for Go implementations, affect the specifics of error messages (such as whether a
compiler reports a type inference or other error), and may explain why type inference fails in
unusual code situations. But by and large these rules can be ignored when writing Go code:
type inference is designed to mostly "work as expected", and the unification rules are fine-
tuned accordingly.

Type unification is controlled by a matching mode, which may be exact or loose. As

unification recursively descends a composite type structure, the matching mode used for
elements of the type, the element matching mode, remains the same as the matching mode
except when two types are unified for assignability (≡A): in this case, the matching mode is
loose at the top level but then changes to exact for element types, reflecting the fact that
types don't have to be identical to be assignable.

Two types that are not bound type parameters unify exactly if any of following conditions is
true:

• Both types are identical.

• Both types have identical structure and their element types unify exactly.
• Exactly one type is an unbound type parameter with a core type, and that core type
unifies with the other type per the unification rules for ≡A (loose unification at the top
level and exact unification for element types).

If both types are bound type parameters, they unify per the given matching modes if:

• Both type parameters are identical.

• At most one of the type parameters has a known type argument. In this case, the type
parameters are joined: they both stand for the same type argument. If neither type
parameter has a known type argument yet, a future type argument inferred for one the
type parameters is simultaneously inferred for both of them.
• Both type parameters have a known type argument and the type arguments unify per
the given matching modes.

A single bound type parameter P and another type T unify per the given matching modes if:

• P doesn't have a known type argument. In this case, T is inferred as the type
argument for P.
• P does have a known type argument A, A and T unify per the given matching modes,

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and one of the following conditions is true:

◦ Both A and T are interface types: In this case, if both A and T are also defined
types, they must be identical. Otherwise, if neither of them is a defined type,
they must have the same number of methods (unification of A and T already
established that the methods match).
◦ Neither A nor T are interface types: In this case, if T is a defined type, T replaces
A as the inferred type argument for P.

Finally, two types that are not bound type parameters unify loosely (and per the element
matching mode) if:

• Both types unify exactly.

• One type is a defined type, the other type is a type literal, but not an interface, and
their underlying types unify per the element matching mode.
• Both types are interfaces (but not type parameters) with identical type terms, both or
neither embed the predeclared type comparable, corresponding method types unify
exactly, and the method set of one of the interfaces is a subset of the method set of
the other interface.
• Only one type is an interface (but not a type parameter), corresponding methods of
the two types unify per the element matching mode, and the method set of the
interface is a subset of the method set of the other type.
• Both types have the same structure and their element types unify per the element
matching mode.

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