Go

Go Basics - 4. Constants in Go

Updated:

In this article, we are going to explore how to work with constants in the Go programming language. We will discuss the following topics:

  • Naming convention
  • Typed constants
  • Untyped constants
  • Enumerated constants

Naming convention

In many languages, constants are typically named with Capital letters. However, remember that in Go, anything that begins with a Capital letter will be exported. So unless you want to export a constant, you should follow the same naming conventions with constants as you do with variables.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
  const helloConst string = "Hello!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  Hello!, string
*/

Constants cannot be altered or re-assigned, hence the name constant.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
  const helloConst string = "Hello!"
  helloConst = "Hi!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  cannot assign to helloConst
*/

Interestingly, constants in Go can be shadowed just like variables.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const helloConst string = "Hello!"

func main() {
  const helloConst = "Hi!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  Hi!, string
*/
package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const helloConst string = "Hello!"

func main() {
  // const helloConst = "Hi!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  Hello!, string
*/

Untyped constants

In the previous examples, I have been using typed constants. Meaning that I am explicitly declaring the type of a constant.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
  const helloConst string = "Hi!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  Hi!, string
*/

However, we can let the Go compiler infer the constant type, similar to how we declare variables with the := operator.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
  const helloConst = "Hi!"
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", helloConst, helloConst)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  Hi!, string
*/

Enumerated constants

In this next example, we are going to use a special symbol called iota which is a counter which we can use when creating enumerated constants

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const a = iota

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T", a, a)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  0, int
*/

We can also declare multiple constants just like variables like so:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const(
  a = iota
  b = iota
  c = iota
)

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", a, a)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", b, b)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", c, c)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  0, int
  1, int
  2, int
*/

Another interesting thing we can do is allow the compiler to infer the other constants that follow the first constant declaration.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const(
  a = iota
  b
  c
)

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", a, a)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", b, b)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", c, c)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  0, int
  1, int
  2, int
*/

iota is scoped to the constant block in which it is used.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

const (
	a = iota
	b
	c
)

const (
	a2 = iota
	b2
	c2
)

func main() {
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", a, a)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", b, b)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", c, c)

	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", a2, a2)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", b2, b2)
	fmt.Printf("%v, %T\n", c2, c2)
}

/*
  The result of the code above is:
  0, int
  1, int
  2, int
  0, int
  1, int
  2, int
*/

Wrap Up

In this article, we learned about the following about constants in Go.

  • Naming convention
  • Typed constants
  • Untyped constants
  • Enumerated constants

Additional Resources

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3. Primitives