Literal and named structs in Go

💻 Tech

Go has named and literal structs. Because Go is a strongly typed language, you can’t directly assign a value of one named struct to another; however, a literal struct can be assigned to a named struct. One practical example is passing functions. Functions are first-class citizens in Go, and they essentially behave like literal structs.

// named structs
type x struct {
	flag bool
}

type y struct {
	flag bool
}

func main() {
   // zero-value declaration
	var x1 x
	var y1 y

	// x1 = y1 --> error: cannot use y1 (variable of type y) as x value in assignment
	x1 = x(y1) // explicit conversion; they are compatible values

	x1 = struct{ flag bool }{flag: true} // literal (anonymous) struct assigned to a named struct

	fmt.Println(x1, y1) // output: {true} {false}
}