This question already has an answer here:
I have a type A that is basically a simple map:
type A map[int32]struct{}
Now, I would like to have a special value of this type to be able to treat it a bit differently. I thought that it would be smart to use nil for this propose (additionally, this way, all non initialized variables of type A would have this value, and this is also what I would like to have):
const s A = nil
But I got
const initializer cannot be nil
Sure I can accept this and refactor my program in dozens of different ways. But I'm still wondering why it's impossible to initialize const to nil? There must be an architectural reason but I don't see it.
(Note that I prefer to "rename" nil instead of using it directly only because the name nil is not very intuitive in my case.)
</div>
I believe that it is because you can only have constants of type boolean, rune, integer, floating-point, complex, and string. Docs: https://golang.org/ref/spec#Constants
Whereas nil is a zero-value for types pointer, interface, map, slice, channel and function Docs: https://golang.org/ref/spec#The_zero_value
You can read more here https://blog.golang.org/constants