CODEWITHSUNDEEP
go
FPGA
FPGA

Reputation: 3865

Empty struct to use with reflect.TypeOf

Whats the difference between &Duck{} and (*Duck)(nil)? Is there any reason to prefer one over the other?

ex:

    fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(&Duck{}) == reflect.TypeOf((*Duck)(nil)))//true
    fmt.Println(nil == (*Duck)(nil))//true
    fmt.Println(nil == &Duck{})//false

Upvotes: 1

Views: 109

Answers (1)

Not_a_Golfer
Not_a_Golfer

Reputation: 49255

&Duck{} points to a "Zero" struct instance, but it is most certainly not nil! You can assign values to it. You can't do all that to a nil pointer, regardless of the fact that they have the same type.

If you're just interested in checking types, I suppose a nil pointer is more efficient as there are no allocations of objects involved.

So it comes down to what exactly it is you want to do.

Upvotes: 2

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