Table of Contents
Overview
In this post, I will write about how looping and conditional statements work in Go.
For
For is Go’s only looping construct. Basic for loop consists of three parts that are listed below.
init statement: It is executed before the first iteration. (It is often used to define a variable that can only be used in the scope of theforstatement.)condition: It is evaluated before every iteration. (If it’s true, the loop body executes. otherwise, the loop terminates.)post statement: It is executed at the end of every iteration.
The basic syntax of Go’s for loop looks like this.
for init statement; condition; post statement {
//content of the loop
}The loop terminates the iteration once the condition evaluates to false.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
var num = 0
for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
num += i
}
fmt.Println(num) //=> 10
}init and post statements can be omitted. When those statements are omitted, Go’s for loop behaves like the while loop of JavaScript/Java/C.
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
num := 1
for num < 100 {
num += num
}
fmt.Println(num) //=> 128
}If you omit the condition, it loops infinitely.
package main
func main() {
for {
}
}If
The basic syntax of Go’s if statement is similar to its for statement.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
var num = 0
fmt.Println(ifStatement(num)) //=> The value is 0
}
func ifStatement(arg int) string{
if arg == 0 {
return "The value is 0"
} else {
return "The value is not 0"
}
}Just like the for statement, if statement can start with a short statement that is executed before the condition.
package main
import "fmt"
func condition(arg string) string {
if v := "Go"; arg == v {
return "This is Go"
} else {
return "This is not Go"
}
}
func main() {
lang := "Ruby"
fmt.Println(condition(lang)) ///=> This is not Go
}Switch
A switch statement is a shorter way to write a sequence of if - else statements. A switch statement only runs the first case that meets the condition, not all the cases that follow.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
lang := "Go"
switch lang {
case "Ruby":
fmt.Println("This is Ruby")
case "Go":
fmt.Println("This is Go")
default:
fmt.Println("This is something else")
}
//=> This is Go
}You can also use the init statement with a switch statement.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
switch lang:= "Go"; lang {
case "Ruby":
fmt.Println("This is Ruby")
case "Go":
fmt.Println("This is Go")
default:
fmt.Println("This is something else")
}
//=> This is Go
}switch without a condition is the same as switch true.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"time"
)
func main() {
t := time.Now()
switch {
case t.Hour() < 12:
fmt.Println("Good morning!")
case t.Hour() < 17:
fmt.Println("Good afternoon.")
default:
fmt.Println("Good evening.")
}
}Defer
A defer statement defers the execution of a function until the surrounding function returns.
For instance, fmt.Println("Hello") is excuted after fmt.Println("World") due to the differ statement that was given in the example below.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
defer fmt.Println("Hello")
fmt.Println("World")
//=> World
// Hello
}Deferred function calls are executed in last-in-first-out order. That means the first function that is given defer would be excuted lastly.
package main
import "fmt"
func main(){
defer fmt.Println(1)
defer fmt.Println(2)
defer fmt.Println(3)
//=> 3
// 2
// 1
}