Greetings! Are you ready to delve deeper into the universe of the Go language? Our current journey delves into a fundamental concept of programming languages: Data Type Conversion. Often, we need to transform one data type into another, similar to adjusting a spaceship's asteroid-floating-point measurements to fit the integer-based radar system. We will study both automatic and explicit conversions, pointing out potential traps and loopholes along the way. Let's power up our knowledge engines!
Unlike many other languages, Go
does not provide automatic type conversions. Consequently, each conversion between different types requires explicit syntax. This might seem restrictive, but the approach is designed to prevent subtle bugs.
There will be instances when we will need to fit a large floating-point number into an integer-based tuple, requiring explicit casting. Observe how we convert a float64
to an int
:
Notice that the fractional part 0.25
was discarded during the process, leaving only 10
as the result.
A type of conversion that frequently occurs in Go
is converting to and from string
values. We often need to convert numbers to strings for output or parse strings as numbers for calculations. Note that you will need to import "strconv"
to use functions for strings conversion. It will look like this:
Now, let's meet our string conversion functions in the following code snippet.
For the conversion from string to int
, we use strconv.Itoa(i)
, and for the conversion from string
to int
, we use strconv.Atoi(s)
. The last one returns two values: the converted string, and an error message if something goes wrong. That's why we assign it to two variables, twentyFive, _
, where twentyFive
will hold our value, and _
will hold the error. Without error, _
will simply contain nil
. By naming error _
, we highlight that we do not plan to use this error message, even if it is not empty.
You may want to convert strings
to float64
numbers, or the other way around. Here is how to do it in Go:
In strconv.FormatFloat(f, 'f', -1, 64)
, 'f'
is the format, -1
allows any precision, and 64
specifies the bit size.
In strconv.ParseFloat(s, 64)
, 64
is the bit size for the resultant floating-point number.
The strconv
functions will return an error if the string is not a valid number. So, ensure your inputs are correctly formatted.
Congratulations! You've now mastered Data Type Conversion in Go
! You've learned that Go
doesn't perform automatic type conversions to ensure explicitness and a bug-free environment.
Now, why not translate this theoretical knowledge into practical skills with some programming exercises? Practice is the launchpad that allows your newly acquired knowledge to soar to greater heights!
