Does anyone know why map can be used as a value receiver, but when working with slices only the pointer receiver has to be used? Why the map is changing after the method call?
Example for map:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type hashMap map[string]int
func (s hashMap) Add(k string, v int) {
s[k] = v
}
func main() {
var s hashMap
s = make(hashMap, 0)
fmt.Println(s)
s.Add("abc", 15)
fmt.Println(s)
}
Output:
map[] map[abc:15]
Example for slice:
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type slice []int
func (s *slice) Add(v int) {
(*s) = append(*s, v)
}
func main() {
var s slice
s = make(slice, 0)
fmt.Println(s)
s.Add(15)
fmt.Println(s)
}
Output:
[] [15]
A map variable, after make, is a pointer to the map header: *hmap
. The map pointer is passed by value
// A header for a Go map.
type hmap struct {
// Note: the format of the Hmap is encoded in ../../cmd/internal/gc/reflect.go and
// ../reflect/type.go. Don't change this structure without also changing that code!
count int // # live cells == size of map. Must be first (used by len() builtin)
flags uint8
B uint8 // log_2 of # of buckets (can hold up to loadFactor * 2^B items)
noverflow uint16 // approximate number of overflow buckets; see incrnoverflow for details
hash0 uint32 // hash seed
buckets unsafe.Pointer // array of 2^B Buckets. may be nil if count==0.
oldbuckets unsafe.Pointer // previous bucket array of half the size, non-nil only when growing
nevacuate uintptr // progress counter for evacuation (buckets less than this have been evacuated)
extra *mapextra // optional fields
}
A slice variable is a struct: slice
. The slice struct is passed by value.
type slice struct {
array unsafe.Pointer
len int
cap int
}
Map is receiver type while struct is value type,Value type. Hence when you call using map value changes after function call.