Comparing Pointers in Golang
Pointers in Go programming language or Golang is a variable which is used to store the memory address of another variable. Pointers in Golang are also termed as the special variables. The variables are used to store some data at a particular memory address in the system. The memory address is always found in hexadecimal format(starting with 0x like 0xFFAAF etc.).
In Go language, you are allowed to compare two pointers with each other. Two pointers values are only equal when they point to the same value in the memory or if they are nil. You can perform a comparison on pointers with the help of == and != operators provided by the Go language:
1. == operator: This operator return true if both the pointer points to the same variable. Or return false if both the pointer points to different variables.
Syntax:
pointer_1 == pointer_2
Example:
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
val1 := 2345
val2 := 567
var p1 * int
p1 = &val1
p2 := &val2
p3 := &val1
res1 := &p1 == &p2
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer is equal to p2 pointer: " , res1)
res2 := p1 == p2
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer is equal to p2 pointer: " , res2)
res3 := p1 == p3
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer is equal to p3 pointer: " , res3)
res4 := p2 == p3
fmt.Println( "Is p2 pointer is equal to p3 pointer: " , res4)
res5 := &p3 == &p1
fmt.Println( "Is p3 pointer is equal to p1 pointer: " , res5)
}
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Output:
Is p1 pointer is equal to p2 pointer: false
Is p1 pointer is equal to p2 pointer: false
Is p1 pointer is equal to p3 pointer: true
Is p2 pointer is equal to p3 pointer: false
Is p3 pointer is equal to p1 pointer: false
2. != operator: This operator return false if both the pointer points to the same variable. Or return true if both the pointer points to different variables.
Syntax:
pointer_1 != pointer_2
Example:
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
val1 := 2345
val2 := 567
var p1 * int
p1 = &val1
p2 := &val2
p3 := &val1
res1 := &p1 != &p2
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer not equal to p2 pointer: " , res1)
res2 := p1 != p2
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer not equal to p2 pointer: " , res2)
res3 := p1 != p3
fmt.Println( "Is p1 pointer not equal to p3 pointer: " , res3)
res4 := p2 != p3
fmt.Println( "Is p2 pointer not equal to p3 pointer: " , res4)
res5 := &p3 != &p1
fmt.Println( "Is p3 pointer not equal to p1 pointer: " , res5)
}
|
Output:
Is p1 pointer not equal to p2 pointer: true
Is p1 pointer not equal to p2 pointer: true
Is p1 pointer not equal to p3 pointer: false
Is p2 pointer not equal to p3 pointer: true
Is p3 pointer not equal to p1 pointer: true
Last Updated :
05 Sep, 2019
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