This article will introduce all kinds of types in Go and the concepts regarding Go type system. Without knowing these fundamental concepts, it is hard to have a thorough understanding of Go.
string.bool.int8, uint8 (byte), int16, uint16, int32 (rune), uint32, int64, uint64, int, uint, uintptr.float32, float64.complex64, complex128.
Note, byte is a built-in alias of uint8,
and rune is a built-in alias of int32.
We can also declare custom type aliases (see below).
Except string types, Go 101 article series will not try to explain more on other basic types.
The 17 built-in basic types are predeclared types.
// Assume T is an arbitrary type and Tkey is
// a type supporting comparison (== and !=).
*T // a pointer type
[5]T // an array type
[]T // a slice type
map[Tkey]T // a map type
// a struct type
struct {
name string
age int
}
// a function type
func(int) (bool, string)
// an interface type
interface {
Method0(string) int
Method1() (int, bool)
}
// some channel types
chan T
chan<- T
<-chan T
Comparable and incomparable types will be explained below.
Each of the above mentioned basic and composite types corresponds to one kind of types.
Besides these kinds, the unsafe pointer types introduced in the
unsafe standard package
also belong to one kind of types in Go.
So, up to now (Go 1.20), Go has 26 kinds of types.
(Type definition, or type definition declaration, initially called type declaration, was the only type declaration way before Go 1.9. Since Go 1.9, type definition has become one of two forms of type declarations. The new form is called type alias declaration, which will be introduced in a section below.)
type is a keyword.
// Define a solo new type.
type NewTypeName SourceType
// Define multiple new types together.
type (
NewTypeName1 SourceType1
NewTypeName2 SourceType2
)
New type names must be identifiers.
But please note that, type names declared at package level can't be init.
This is the same for the following introduced type alias names.
The second type declaration in the above example includes two type specifications.
If a type declaration contains more than one type specification,
the type specifications must be enclosed within a pair of ().
// The following new defined and source types are all
// basic types. The source types are all predeclared.
type (
MyInt int
Age int
Text string
)
// The following new defined and source types are all
// composite types. The source types are all unnamed.
type IntPtr *int
type Book struct{author, title string; pages int}
type Convert func(in0 int, in1 bool)(out0 int, out1 string)
type StringArray [5]string
type StringSlice []string
func f() {
// The names of the three defined types
// can be only used within the function.
type PersonAge map[string]int
type MessageQueue chan string
type Reader interface{Read([]byte) int}
}
Please note that, from Go 1.9 to Go 1.17, the Go specification ever thought predeclared built-in types are defined types. But since Go 1.18, the Go specificaiton clarifies that predeclared built-in types are not defined types.
Since Go 1.18, Go has supported custom generic types (and functions). A generic type must be instantiated to be used as value types.
A generic type is a defined type and its instantiated types are named types (named types are explained in the next section).
The other two important concepts in custom generics are constraints and type parameters.
This book doesn't talk about custom generics in detail. Please read the Go Generics 101 book on how to declare and use generic types and functions.
Before Go 1.9, the terminology named type is defined accurately in Go specification. A named type was defined as a type that is represented by an identifier. Along with the custom type alias feature introduced in Go 1.9 (see the next section), the named type terminology was ever removed from Go specification and it was replaced by the defined type terminology. Since Go 1.18, along with the introduction of custom generics, the named type terminology has been added back to Go specification.
A named type may beOther value types are called unnamed types. An unnamed type must be a composite type (not vice versa).
= in each type alias specification.
type (
Name = string
Age = int
)
type table = map[string]int
type Table = map[Name]Age
Type alias names must be identifiers. Like type definitions, type aliases can also be declared within function bodies.
Name is an alias of string,
so both denote the same type.
The same applies to the other three pairs of type notations (either names or literals):
Age and int
table and map[string]int
Table and map[Name]Age
In fact, the literals map[string]int
and map[Name]Age also both denote the same type.
So, similarly, aliases table and Table also denote the same type.
Note, although a type alias always has a name, it might denote an unnamed type.
For example, the table and Table aliases both
denote the same unnamed type map[string]int.
Pointer type defined in the unsafe standard code package,
its underlying type is itself (at least we can think so. In fact, the underlying type
of the unsafe.Pointer type is not well documented. We can also think
the underlying type is *T, where T represents an arbitrary type).
unsafe.Pointer is also viewed as a built-in type.// The underlying types of the following ones are both int.
type (
MyInt int
Age MyInt
)
// The following new types have different underlying types.
type (
IntSlice []int // underlying type is []int
MyIntSlice []MyInt // underlying type is []MyInt
AgeSlice []Age // underlying type is []Age
)
// The underlying types of []Age, Ages, and AgeSlice
// are all the unnamed type []Age.
type Ages AgeSlice
How can an underlying type be traced given a user declared type? The rule is, when a built-in basic type or an unnamed type is met, the tracing should be stopped. Take the type declarations shown above as examples, let's trace their underlying types.
MyInt → int Age → MyInt → int IntSlice → []int MyIntSlice → []MyInt → []int AgeSlice → []Age → []MyInt → []int Ages → AgeSlice → []Age → []MyInt → []int
In Go,
bool are called boolean types;float32 or float64 are called floating-point types;complex64 or complex128 are called complex types;string are called string types.The concept of underlying type plays an important role in value conversions, assignments and comparisons in Go.
An instance of a type is called a 'value' of the type. Values of the same type share some common properties. A type may have many values. One of them is the zero value of the type.
Each type has a zero value, which can be viewed as the default value of the type.
The predeclared nil identifier can used to represent
zero values of slices, maps, functions, channels,
pointers (including type-unsafe pointers) and interfaces.
For more information on nil, please read nil in Go.
There are several kinds of value representation forms in code, including literals, named constants, variables and expressions, though the former three can be viewed as special cases of the latter one.
A value can be typed or untyped.
All kinds of basic value literals have been introduced in the article basic types and basic value literals. There are two more kinds of literals in Go, composite literals and function literals.
Function literals, as the name implies, are used to represent function values. A function declaration is composed of a function literal and an identifier (the function name).
Composite literals are used to represent values of struct types and container types (arrays, slices and maps), Please read structs in Go and containers in Go for more details.
There are no literals to represent values of pointers, channels and interfaces.
At run time, many values are stored somewhere in memory. In Go, each of such values has a direct part. However, some of them have one or more indirect parts. Each value part occupies a continuous memory segment. The indirect underlying parts of a value are referenced by its direct part through (safe or unsafe) pointers.
The terminology value part is not defined in Go specification. It is just used in Go 101 to make some explanations simpler and help Go programmers understand Go types and values better.
When a value is stored in memory, the number of bytes occupied by the direct part of the value is called the size of the value. As all values of the same type have the same value size, we often simply call this the size of the type.
We can use the Sizeof function in the unsafe
standard package to get the size of any value.
Go specification doesn't specify value size requirements for non-numeric types. The requirements for value sizes of all kinds of basic numeric types are listed in the article basic types and basic value literals.
For a pointer type, assume its underlying type can be denoted as *T
in literal, then T is called the base type of the pointer type.
More information on pointer types and values can be found in the article pointers in Go.
Book has
three fields, author, title and pages.
struct {
author string
title string
pages int
}
More information on struct types and values can be found in the article structs in Go.
The signature of a function type is composed of the input parameter definition list and the output result definition list of the function.
The function name and body are not parts of a function signature. Parameter and result types are important for a function signature, but parameter and result names are not important.
Please read functions in Go for more details on function types and function values.
In Go, some types can have methods. Methods can also be called member functions. The method set of a type is composed of all the methods of the type.
Interface values are values whose types are interface types.
Each interface value can box a non-interface value in it. The value boxed in an interface value is called the dynamic value of the interface value. The type of the dynamic value is called the dynamic type of the interface value. An interface value boxing nothing is a zero interface value. A zero interface value has neither a dynamic value nor a dynamic type.
An interface type can specify zero or several methods, which form the method set of the interface type.
If the method set of a type, which is either an interface type or a non-interface type, is the super set of the method set of an interface type, we say the type implements the interface type.
For more about interface types and values, please read interfaces in Go.
For a (typed) non-interface value, its concrete value is itself and its concrete type is the type of the value.
A zero interface value has neither concrete type nor concrete value. For a non-zero interface value, its concrete value is its dynamic value and its concrete type is its dynamic type.
Arrays, slices and maps can be viewed as formal container types.
Sometimes, string and channel types can also be viewed as container types informally.
Each value of a formal or informal container type has a length.
More information on formal container types and values can be found in the article containers in Go.
If the underlying type of a map type can be denoted as map[Tkey]T,
then Tkey is called the key type of the map type.
Tkey must be a comparable type (see below).
[N]T, then its element type is T.[]T, then its element type is T.map[Tkey]T, then its element type is T.chan T, chan<- T or <-chan T, then its element type is T.byte (a.k.a. uint8).chan T literal.
chan<- T literal.
<-chan T literal.
More information on channel types and values can be found in the article channels in Go.
== and != operators)
for values of the following types:
Above listed types are called incomparable types. All other types are called comparable types. Compilers forbid comparing two values of incomparable types.
Note, incomparable types are also called uncomparable types in many articles.
The key type of any map type must be a comparable type.
We can learn more about the detailed rules of comparisons from the article value conversions, assignments and comparisons in Go.
Before Go 1.18, the generic functionalities in Go were limited to built-in types and functions. Since Go 1.18, custom generics has already been supported. Please read the generics in Go article for built-in generics and the Go Generics 101 book for custom generics.
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