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36 Introduction

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19 views3 pages

36 Introduction

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© © All Rights Reserved
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Introduction

This lesson gives an introduction to interfaces in Go using an example, also explains how to de ne a new type that
would implement the same interface.

WE'LL COVER THE FOLLOWING

• De nition
• Example
• De ning a New Type

De nition #
An interface type is defined by a set of methods. A value of interface type can
hold any value that implements those methods. Interfaces increase the
flexibility as well as the scalability of the code. Hence, it can be used to
achieve polymorphism in Golang. Interface does not require a particular type,
specifying that only some behavior is needed, which is defined by a set of
methods.

Example #
Here is a refactored version of our earlier example. This time we made the
greeting feature more generic by defining a function called Greet which takes
a param of interface type Namer . Namer is a new interface we defined which
only defines one method: Name() . So Greet() will accept as param any value
which has a Name() method defined.

To make our User struct implement the interface, we defined a Name()


method. We can now call Greet and pass our pointer to User type.

Environment Variables

Key: Value:
GOPATH /go

package main

import (
"fmt"
)

type User struct {


FirstName, LastName string
}

func (u *User) Name() string {


return fmt.Sprintf("%s %s", u.FirstName, u.LastName)
}

type Namer interface {


Name() string //The Namer interface is defined by the Name() method
}

func Greet(n Namer) string {


return fmt.Sprintf("Dear %s", n.Name())
}

func main() {
u := &User{"Matt", "Aimonetti"}
fmt.Println(Greet(u))
}

De ning a New Type #


We could now define a new type that would implement the same interface
and our Greet function would still work.

Environment Variables

Key: Value:

GOPATH /go

package main

import (
"fmt"
)

type User struct {


FirstName, LastName string
}

func (u *User) Name() string { //Name method used for type User
return fmt.Sprintf("%s %s", u.FirstName, u.LastName)
}
type Customer struct {
Id int
FullName string
}

func (c *Customer) Name() string { //Name method used for type Customer
return c.FullName
}

type Namer interface {


Name() string //Both Name() methods can be called using the Namer interface
}

func Greet(n Namer) string {


return fmt.Sprintf("Dear %s", n.Name())
}

func main() {
u := &User{"Matt", "Aimonetti"}
fmt.Println(Greet(u))
c := &Customer{42, "Francesc"}
fmt.Println(Greet(c))
}

Now that we have a basic understanding of interfaces in Go, we will continue


to look into how they are satisfied in the next section.

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