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Zero value in Golang

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In Go language, whenever we allocate memory for a variable with the help of declaration or by using new and if the variable is not initialized explicitly, then the value of such types of variables are automatically initialized with their zero value. The initialization of the zero value is done recursively. So, every element of the array of the structs has its fields zero if they are not specified with any value. Following are the zero values for different types of variables:

Type Zero Value
Integer 0
Floating point 0.0
Boolean false
String “”
Pointer nil
Interface nil
Slice nil
Map nil
Channel nil
Function nil

Example 1:




// Go program to illustrate the concept of zero value
package main
  
import "fmt"
  
// Main Method
func main() {
  
    // Creating variables
    // of different types
    var q1 int
    var q2 float64
    var q3 bool
    var q4 string
    var q5 []int
    var q6 *int
    var q7 map[int]string
  
    // Displaying the zero value
    // of the above variables
    fmt.Println("Zero value for integer types: ", q1)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for float64 types: ", q2)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for boolean types: ", q3)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for string types: ", q4)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for slice types: ", q5)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for pointer types: ", q6)
    fmt.Println("Zero value for map types: ", q7)
}


Output:

Zero value for integer types:  0
Zero value for float64 types:  0
Zero value for boolean types:  false
Zero value for string types:  
Zero value for slice types:  []
Zero value for pointer types:  <nil>
Zero value for map types:  map[]

Example 2:




// Go program to check the variable
// contains zero value or not
package main
  
import "fmt"
  
func main() {
  
    // Creating variables of different types
    var q1 int = 2
    var q2 float64
    var q3 bool
    var q4 string
  
    // Slice
    var q5 []int
  
    // Pointer
    var q6 *int
  
    // Map
    var q7 map[int]string
  
    // Checking if the given variables
    // contain their zero value or not
    if q1 == 0 {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q2 == 0 {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q3 == false {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q4 == "" {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q5 == nil {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q6 == nil {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
    if q7 == nil {
      
        fmt.Println("True")
          
    } else {
      
        fmt.Println("False")
    }
  
}


Output:

False
True
True
True
True
True
True


Last Updated : 09 Aug, 2019
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