Table of Contents
Prerequisites for learning Go
Documents related to go are following a series on Udemy by Maximilian Schwarzmüller among some other prominent developers and course creators on LinkedIn Learning. To follow along with learning go, it is highly recommended to know the basics of another language.
Abstract
Conversions in Go
Why do we use Conversions?
Being go, a statically-typed programming language, conversions are necessary to ensure compatibility between different data types. It is a process that involves changing the type of a variable to another explicitly, providing precision and avoiding any unintended behavior.
Types of Possible Conversions
General Formula
The expression for conversion is similar to this:
T(x)where the value x converts to the type T.
Integers
- When converting to a shorter integer types, the value is truncated to fit in the resultant type’s size.
- When converting to a longer integer type:
- If the value is a signed integer, it is sign extended.
- If the value is an unsigned integer, it is zero extended.
a := uint16(0x10fe) // 0001 0000 1111 1110
b := int8(a) // 1111 1110 (truncated to -2)
c := uint16(b) // 1111 1111 1111 1110 (sign extended to 0xfffe)Floats
- Converting a floating-point number to an integer, the fraction is discarded (truncated towards zero).
- When converting an integer or floating-point number to a floating-point type, the result value is rounded to the precision specified by its destination type.
var x float64 = 1.9
n := int64(x) // 1
n = int64(-x) // -1
n = 1234567890
y := float32(n) // 1.234568e+09CAUTION
In all non-constant conversions involving floating-point or complex values, if the result type cannot represent the value the conversion succeeds but the value is implementation-dependent.
Integer to Strings
String to Byte Slices
Underlying Types
Implicit Conversions
Definitions
TL;DR
Extensions ✨
Courses on Go
- Go - The Complete Guide by Maximillian Schwarzmüller
- Go Essentials - Concurrency, Connectivity, and High-Performance Apps by Miki Tebeka
- Learning Go by David Gassner
- Learning the Go Standard Library by Joe Marini
- Go Design Patterns by Joe Marini