[go] nil detection in Go

I see a lot of code in Go to detect nil, like this:

if err != nil { 
    // handle the error    
}

however, I have a struct like this:

type Config struct {
    host string  
    port float64
}

and config is an instance of Config, when I do:

if config == nil {
}

there is compile error, saying: cannot convert nil to type Config

I have created some sample code which creates new variables using a variety of ways that I can think of. It looks like the first 3 ways create values, and the last two create references.

package main

import "fmt"

type Config struct {
    host string
    port float64
}

func main() {
    //value
    var c1 Config
    c2 := Config{}
    c3 := *new(Config)

    //reference
    c4 := &Config{}
    c5 := new(Config)

    fmt.Println(&c1 == nil)
    fmt.Println(&c2 == nil)
    fmt.Println(&c3 == nil)
    fmt.Println(c4 == nil)
    fmt.Println(c5 == nil)

    fmt.Println(c1, c2, c3, c4, c5)
}

which outputs:

false
false
false
false
false
{ 0} { 0} { 0} &{ 0} &{ 0}

The language spec mentions comparison operators' behaviors:

comparison operators

In any comparison, the first operand must be assignable to the type of the second operand, or vice versa.

Assignability

A value x is assignable to a variable of type T ("x is assignable to T") in any of these cases:

• x's type is identical to T.
• x's type V and T have identical underlying types and at least one of V or T is not a named type.
• T is an interface type and x implements T.
• x is a bidirectional channel value, T is a channel type, x's type V and T have identical element types, and at least one of V or T is not a named type.
• x is the predeclared identifier nil and T is a pointer, function, slice, map, channel, or interface type.
• x is an untyped constant representable by a value of type T.

In Go 1.13 and later, you can use Value.IsZero method offered in reflect package.

if reflect.ValueOf(v).IsZero() {
    // v is zero, do something
}

Apart from basic types, it also works for Array, Chan, Func, Interface, Map, Ptr, Slice, UnsafePointer, and Struct. See this for reference.

In addition to Oleiade, see the spec on zero values:

When memory is allocated to store a value, either through a declaration or a call of make or new, and no explicit initialization is provided, the memory is given a default initialization. Each element of such a value is set to the zero value for its type: false for booleans, 0 for integers, 0.0 for floats, "" for strings, and nil for pointers, functions, interfaces, slices, channels, and maps. This initialization is done recursively, so for instance each element of an array of structs will have its fields zeroed if no value is specified.

As you can see, nil is not the zero value for every type but only for pointers, functions, interfaces, slices, channels and maps. This is the reason why config == nil is an error and &config == nil is not.

To check whether your struct is uninitialized you'd have to check every member for its respective zero value (e.g. host == "", port == 0, etc.) or have a private field which is set by an internal initialization method. Example:

type Config struct {
    Host string  
    Port float64
    setup bool
}

func NewConfig(host string, port float64) *Config {
    return &Config{host, port, true}
}

func (c *Config) Initialized() bool { return c != nil && c.setup }

You can also check like struct_var == (struct{}). This does not allow you to compare to nil but it does check if it is initialized or not. Be careful while using this method. If your struct can have zero values for all of its fields you won't have great time.

package main

import "fmt"

type A struct {
    Name string
}

func main() {
    a := A{"Hello"}
    var b A

    if a == (A{}) {
        fmt.Println("A is empty") // Does not print
    } 

    if b == (A{}) {
        fmt.Println("B is empty") // Prints
    } 
}

http://play.golang.org/p/RXcE06chxE