Go: Slices explained

A slice is a view of an underlying array. You can use s[i] to view and modify an element of a slice s. Modifications will affect the underlying array as well.

You may think of a slice as a descriptor of an array segment:

Create

The type of a slice is []T. Here's a simple way to declare and initialize a slice:

s := []string{"foo", "bar", "baz", "qux"}

Here's how to use the make function to create and initialize a slice with five zeroes:

s := make([]int, 5)

You can also create a slice backed by an existing array.

a := [...]int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5} s1 := a[1:4] 0 1 2 3 4 5 s2 := a[:4] 0 1 2 3 4 5 s3 := a[4:] 0 1 2 3 4 5 s4 := a[:] 0 1 2 3 4 5

Length and capacity

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 length capacity

The length and capacity can be retrieved using the built-in functions len and cap.

The make function optionally takes a capacity as a third argument. make([]int, 10, 100) for example, is the same as new([100]int)[:10].

Reslice and extend

You can slice a slice:

// Create slice s := a[1:5] 0 1 2 3 4 5 // Slice again! s = s[1:3] 0 1 2 3 4 5

The indices in the last line are relative to the slice itself, not to the backing array. The end index is not bound by the slice's length, but by it's the capacity, which means we can extend the slices length:

// Create slice s := a[1:3] 0 1 2 3 4 5 // Extend length s = s[0:4] 0 1 2 3 4 5

Trying to extend beyond the capacity will cause a panic. You can not use a negative start index.

Append

There's a built-in function called append which appends elements to a slice. It will automatically allocate a larger backing array if the capacity is exceeded.

s := make([]int, 0, 3) 0 0 0 s = append(s, 1) 1 0 0 s = append(s, 2) 1 2 0 s = append(s, 3, 4, 5) 1 2 3 4 5 0 0 0

Zero value

The default value of a slice is nil. The functions len, cap and append all regard nil as an empty slice with 0 capacity.

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