time.Time.GobDecode() Function in Golang with Examples

In Go language, time packages supplies functionality for determining as well as viewing time. The GobDecode() function in Go language is used to implement the gob.GobDecoder interface. Moreover, this function is defined under the time package. Here, you need to import the “time” package in order to use these functions.

Syntax:

func (t *Time) GobDecode(data []byte) error

Here, “t” is the pointer to the stated time, and “data” is the byte slice that overwrites the receiver’s encoding which was returned by GobEncode() method.

Return Value: It overwrites receiver’s encoding which was returned by GobEncode() method and returns an error occurred but if there is no error then “nil” is returned.

Example 1:

// Golang program to illustrate the usage of
// Time.GobDecode() function

// Including main package
package main

// Importing fmt and time
import "fmt"
import "time"

// Calling main
func main() {

    // Defining t for GobEncode method
    t := time.Date(2019, 4, 6, 12, 34, 33, 0, time.UTC)

    // Calling GobEncode() method
    encoding, error := t.GobEncode()

    // If error is not nil then panic error
    if error != nil {
        panic(error)
    }

    // Defining tm for GobDecode() method
    var tm time.Time

    // Calling GobDecode method with its parameters
    decode := tm.GobDecode(encoding)

    // Prints error
    fmt.Printf("Error: %v\n", decode)
}

Output:

Error: <nil>

Example 2:

// Golang program to illustrate the usage of
// Time.GobDecode() function

// Including main package
package main

// Importing fmt and time
import "fmt"
import "time"

// Calling main
func main() {

    // Defining t for GobEncode method
    t := time.Date(2020, 44, 61, 37, 87, 72, 4566, time.UTC)

    // Calling GobEncode() method
    encoding, error := t.GobEncode()

    // If error is not nil then panic error
    if error != nil {
        panic(error)
    }

    // Defining tm for GobDecode() method
    var tm time.Time

    // Calling GobDecode method with its parameters
    decode := tm.GobDecode(encoding)

    // Prints error
    fmt.Printf("Error: %v\n", decode)
}

Output:

Error: <nil>

Here, the “t” stated in the above code have values that are outside usual range but they are normalized while conversion.