The strings.Join function takes slices of strings only:
s := []string{"foo", "bar", "baz"}
fmt.Println(strings.Join(s, ", "))
But it would be nice to be able to pass arbitrary objects which implement a ToString() function.
type ToStringConverter interface {
ToString() string
}
Is there something like this in Go or do I have to decorate existing types like int with ToString methods and write a wrapper around strings.Join?
func Join(a []ToStringConverter, sep string) string
Attach a String() string method to any named type and enjoy any custom "ToString" functionality:
package main
import "fmt"
type bin int
func (b bin) String() string {
return fmt.Sprintf("%b", b)
}
func main() {
fmt.Println(bin(42))
}
Playground: http://play.golang.org/p/Azql7_pDAA
Output
101010
Another example with a struct :
package types
import "fmt"
type MyType struct {
Id int
Name string
}
func (t MyType) String() string {
return fmt.Sprintf(
"[%d : %s]",
t.Id,
t.Name)
}
Be careful when using it,
concatenation with '+' doesn't compile :
t := types.MyType{ 12, "Blabla" }
fmt.Println(t) // OK
fmt.Printf("t : %s \n", t) // OK
//fmt.Println("t : " + t) // Compiler error !!!
fmt.Println("t : " + t.String()) // OK if calling the function explicitly
When you have own struct, you could have own convert-to-string function.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type Color struct {
Red int `json:"red"`
Green int `json:"green"`
Blue int `json:"blue"`
}
func (c Color) String() string {
return fmt.Sprintf("[%d, %d, %d]", c.Red, c.Green, c.Blue)
}
func main() {
c := Color{Red: 123, Green: 11, Blue: 34}
fmt.Println(c) //[123, 11, 34]
}
I prefer something like the following:
type StringRef []byte
func (s StringRef) String() string {
return string(s[:])
}
…
// rather silly example, but ...
fmt.Printf("foo=%s\n",StringRef("bar"))
Source: Stackoverflow.com