Golang print type of an object [SOLVED]


Written by - Tuan Nguyen
Reviewed by - Deepak Prasad

In Go, how do we identify the type of an object? To get the type of an object in Python, simply use typeof function. Is it possible to implement the same thing in Go? Yes, of course, in this article, I will show you 3 ways of getting the object's type in Go.

 

Use string formatting to get the object's type

Package fmt implements formatted I/O with functions analogous to C's printf and scanf. The format 'verbs' are derived from C's but are simpler. With the verb 'T', we can easily get the object's type at the runtime:

%T a Go-syntax representation of the type of the value

In example below, I will use Printf() function to print out the type of object:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
	// create an interface contains multiple types of data
	types := []interface{}{"a", 6, 6.3, true, []int{4, 3, 4, 1}, map[string]int{
		"Harry Potter": 23,
		"Mary Jane":    19,
	}}
	for _, v := range types {
		// for each variable, print out the type
		fmt.Printf("Type of %v is %T", v, v)
		fmt.Println()
	}
}

Output:

Type of a is string
Type of 6 is int
Type of 6.3 is float64
Type of true is bool
Type of [4 3 4 1] is []int
Type of map[Harry Potter:23 Mary Jane:19] is map[string]int

 

With this function, we can print the struct type. Consider the example below:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	// create a person
	p := person{"Ariana", 25}
	fmt.Printf("Type of %v is %T", p, p)
}

type person struct {
	fullName string
	age      int
}

Output:

Type of {Ariana 25} is main.person

 

Using string reflect package to return the object's type

Package reflect implements run-time reflection, allowing a program to manipulate objects with arbitrary types. The typical use is to take a value with static type interface{} and extract its dynamic type information by calling TypeOf, which returns a Type.

A call to ValueOf returns a Value representing the run-time data. Zero takes a Type and returns a Value representing a zero value for that type.

This example shows how to use reflect package to return the object's type at run time

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"reflect"
)

func main() {
	// create a person
	p := person{"Ariana", 25}

	// get the object's type
	typeOfPerson := reflect.TypeOf(p).String()

	fmt.Println("Type of", p, "is", typeOfPerson)

	types := []interface{}{"a", 6, 6.3, true, []int{4, 3, 4, 1}, map[string]int{
		"Harry Potter": 23,
		"Mary Jane":    19,
	}}
	for _, v := range types {
		// for each variable, print out the type
		fmt.Println("Type of", v, "is", reflect.TypeOf(v).String())
	}
}

type person struct {
	fullName string
	age      int
}

Output:

Type of {Ariana 25} is main.person
Type of a is string
Type of 6 is int
Type of 6.3 is float64
Type of true is bool
Type of [4 3 4 1] is []int
Type of map[Harry Potter:23 Mary Jane:19] is map[string]int

 

Using type assertions to check the type of object

If T is not an interface type, x.(T) asserts that the dynamic type of x is identical  to the type T. In this case, T must implement the (interface) type of x; otherwise the type assertion is invalid since it is not possible for x to store a value of type T. If T is an interface type, x.(T) asserts that the dynamic type of x implements the interface T.

Here's an example of using type assertions to find out the type of the object.

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
	// create an interface contains multiple types of data
	types := []interface{}{"a", 6, 6.3, true, []int{4, 3, 4, 1}, map[string]int{"Harry Potter": 23, "Mary Jane": 19}}
	for _, v := range types {
		// for each variable, print out the type
		fmt.Println("Type of", v, "is", typeof(v))

	}
}

// function find out the object's type
func typeof(v interface{}) string {
	switch v.(type) {
	case int:
		return "int"
	case float64:
		return "float64"
	case string:
		return "string"
	default:
		return "unknown"
	}
}

Output:

Type of a is string
Type of 6 is int
Type of 6.3 is float64
Type of true is unknown
Type of [4 3 4 1] is unknown
Type of map[Harry Potter:23 Mary Jane:19] is unknown

 

Summary

In this article, I have introduced three methods to return a object's type at runtime: using string formatting, go reflect package and type assertions. Every method has a different best use case:

  • string formatting - simple and lightweight (not necessary to import reflect package)
  • reflect package - we have access to the full reflection capabilities when we need more information about the type.
  • type assertions - allows for type grouping, such as all int32, int64, uint32, uint64 types as "int". Noted that, we do not find out a specific object's type but use switch statement, so if we don't list all data types to compare, there won't be a matching case.

 

References

https://pkg.go.dev/fmt
https://pkg.go.dev/reflect
http://golang.org/ref/spec#Type_assertions

 

Further Reading

How to find the type of an object in Go?

 

Views: 4

Tuan Nguyen

He is proficient in Golang, Python, Java, MongoDB, Selenium, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, Scrapy, API development, Docker, Data Scraping, PrimeFaces, Linux, Data Structures, and Data Mining. With expertise spanning these technologies, he develops robust solutions and implements efficient data processing and management strategies across various projects and platforms. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

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