Development
Guideline to Golang – Discover All The Essential Details Here
Last Updated 24 May 2023
Developers can never settle for less attention! With such a dialect integrative frame, GOLANG is one — A buzzword and a trending term that is gaining a lot of attention in recent times.
The article will make you familiar with relevant details required to understand the term.
The list of topics covered in the article is as follows :-
- Introduction of Golang
- Prominent features of Golang
- Installation of Golang
- The basic structure of a Golang program
- The first Golang program
- Operators in Golang
- Data types in Golang
- Prominent Golang tools for compelling web development
What is Golang?
Golang or Go is an open-source programming language created and launched by Google in 2007. The key people behind this successful development and introduction of Golang are – Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson.
Golang is basically a statistically-typed language having a syntax identical to that of C language. Having an easier and faster way to develop high-performing software applications was the main motive behind the launch of the Go language. Go has successfully accomplished the purpose behind its development by providing a list of amazing and unique features to create flawless software applications.
Prominent Features of Golang
- Go is a simple and easy-to-use language with compact and strong syntax.
- The compilation time of Go programs is pretty less as compared to other languages.
- Golang provides an excellent collection of built-in libraries that enables easy and effective creation of the code.
- Golang offers great testing support that allows you to create more reliable software.
- The concurrency primitives offered by Golang provide an easier way to implement concurrency systems effectively.
Installation of Guideline of Golang Installation
Golang is a highly portable language that can work effectively on a variety of operating systems together with Windows, Linux, and Mac. You can follow this link to install Go in your system.
The basic Structure of a Go Program
A Go program typically includes the below parts
- Package declaration
- Import package
- Variables
- Statements and expressions
- Functions
- Comments
The First Go program
Below is a simple Go program to print ‘Hello World’ message.
package main
import “fmt”
func main() {
/* This is my first sample program. */
fmt.Println(“Hello, World!”)
}
Let us understand the program in detail
Package main – The line specifies the package name where the program should rest.
Import “fmt” – A preprocessor command telling the compiler to merge the files residing in the package “fmt” with the program.
Func main – main function from where the execution of the program will begin
/* This is my first sample program */ – A comment that will be ignored by the compiler during execution.
Println() – A function used to display messages on the computer’s screen. The function Println belongs to the ‘fmt’ package.
Datatypes in Golang
The data type of a variable particularly determines which type of value a variable is going to store and how much memory the variable is going to take. The data types in Golang can be mainly categorized into the four types
- Basic type: constitute numbers, strings, and booleans
- Aggregate type: constitute array and struct
- Reference type: constitute pointers, slices, maps, functions, and channels
- Interface type
Basic data type of Golang
The basic data type can be further classified into three categories
- Numbers
- Booleans
- Strings
1. Number
Number types are the arithmetic types that can be further classified into two types
- Integer types
- Floating-point types
Integer types
Golang language allows both signed and unsigned integers in various different sizes. The signed integer is depicted by ‘int’ and unsigned int is depicted by ‘uint’. The most commonly used examples are – int8 (1 byte signed integer), int16 (2 bytes signed integer), int32 (4 bytes signed integer), uint8 (1 byte unsigned integer), uint16 (2 bytes unsigned integer), uint32 (4 bytes unsigned integer) and so on.
Let’s write a small program demonstrating the use of integers
package main
import “fmt”
function main()
{
var A uint8=65 // 8 bit unsigned integer
fmt.Println(A)
}
Output: 65
Floating-point types
In Go language, the floating-point numbers can be classified into two types – float32 & float64.
2. Boolean type
Boolean is a variable type that holds any of the two values – true or false. Let’s have a look at a small example illustrating the use of booleans
package main
import “fmt”
func main()
{
string1:=”ABC”
string2:=”abc”
string3:=”ABC”
res1:=string1==string2
res2:=string1==string3
fmt.Println(res1);
fmt.Println(res2);
}
Output:
false
true
3. String
In Golang, a string is nothing but a sequence of characters in which each character is represented in the form of bytes by utilizing UTF-8 Encoding. In a Go program, strings are enclosed in double-quotes.
Operators in Golang
An operator in any programming language is a symbol that directs the compiler to carry out a specific operation. Like any other programming language, Golang also supports a specific set of built-in operators that include the following
- Arithmetic operators
- Relational operators
- Logical operators
- Bitwise operators
- Assignment operators
- Misc operators
Arithmetic operators
The arithmetic operators supported by Golang include the following list
| + | Utilized to add two operands. |
| – | Utilized to subtract first operand from second. |
| * | Utilized to multiply the operands. |
| / | Utilized to divide first operand by second. |
| % | Utilized to get the remainder of an integer division. |
| ++ | Utilized to increase an integer value by 1. |
| — | Utilize to decrease an integer value by 1. |
Relational Operators
Relational operators are utilized to perform a comparison between the two given values. Go language supports the following relational operators
| == | Returns true if the two given values are equal else returns false. |
| != | Returns true if the two given values are not equal else returns false. |
| < | Returns true if the left operand is less than the right operand else returns false. |
| > | Returns true if the left operand is greater than the right operand else returns false. |
| <= | Returns true if the left operand is less than or equal to the right operand else returns false. |
| >= | Returns true if the left operand is greater than or equal to the right operand else returns false. |
Logical operators
Golang language supports three main logical operators as given below
| Logical AND (&&) | Returns true if both the given conditions are satisfied else returns false. |
| Logical OR (||) | Returns true if any one if the given conditions is satisfied else returns false. |
| Logical NOT (!) | Returns true if the given condition is not satisfied else returns false. |
Assignment operators
Assignment operators are utilized to give values to the program variables. Golang language supports the following assignment operators
| = | Assigns value to the left side operand. | Example : a=b Assigns the value of operand b to operand a. |
| += | Adds values of both left and right side operands and assigns the result to the left side operand. | Example : a+=b Value of a and b operands will be added and the result will be assigned to a. |
| -= | Subtracts the value of the right side operand from the left side operand and assigns the result to the left side operand. | Example : a-=b Value of operand b will be subtracted from the value of operand a and the result will be assigned to a. |
| *= | Multiples the values of both operands and assigns the result to the left side operand. | Example : a*=b Values of both a and b operands will be multiplied and the result will be assigned to a. |
| /= | Divides the left operand by the right operand and assigns the quotient to the left operand. | Example : a/=b Value of a will be divided by the value of b and the quotient will be assigned to a. |
| %= | Divides the left operand by the right operand and assigns the remainder to the left operand. | Example : a%=b Value of a will be divided by the value of b and the remainder will be assigned to a. |
Bitwise operators
Bitwise operators are those operators that work on the binary values of the operands. Golang language supports the following bitwise operators.
| Bitwise AND (&) | Takes two numbers as operands and performs AND on each bit. Results 1 only if both the bits are 1 else returns 0. | Example : a=1, b=1, a&b=1 a=1, b=0, a&b=0 |
| Bitwise OR (|) | Returns 1 if anyone one of the two bits are 1 else returns 0. | Example : a=1,b=0, a|b=1 a=0, b=0, a|b=0 |
| Bitwise XOR (^) | Returns 1 if both the bits are different else returns 0. | Example : a=1, b=0, a^b=1 a=1,b=1, a^b=0 |
Miscellaneous operators
| & | Used to retrieve the address of a program variable. |
| * | Used to assign a pointer to a program variable. |
| < | Used to obtain a value from the channel |
Prominent Golang tools and frameworks for compelling web development
Golang language provides several powerful tools as well as packages that can be used for easy and reliable creation of web applications. Let us have a look at a few of them
1. go get
The first and foremost in the list is go get. The go get tool aids you to retrieve and install external packages and other relevant stuff in your Golang project.
2. go vet
The developers are likely to commit mistakes while drafting the code no matter which programming language they are working on. These errors can be divided into three categories more specifically syntax, logical and runtime. The go vet tool is utilized to examine the Golang code for the violation of the language’s syntactical rules. It means the tool provides an easy way to catch up all the syntactical errors incorporated in your codebase and fix them in a timely manner.
3. GoDoc
Documentation is a crucial element within the Go ecosystem that helps to understand a Go program thoroughly and effectively. GoDoc tool is a great tool utilized to create documentations for your underlying source code with the help of the comments added in the source code. This documentation can either be presented in the form of HTML using the HTML tags or in the form of simple, plain text.
4. Gin Gonic
Gin Gonic is an excellent Golang framework that aids beginner level Golang developer to get started with Golang. It provides all the necessary features and libraries required to start an effective golang development. The framework also provides an easy and compelling way to accomplish easy testing and debugging of the project. The prominent features of Gin Gonic include the utilization of HTTP routers to guarantee faster application development, easy and simple designing rules for documentation and so on.
5. Buffalo
Buffalo is one more amazing Golang development framework capable of gratifying all your application needs. It serves as a great helping hand that can guide you throughout your development process starting from front-end, back-end upto initiating the execution. The main features of buffalo framework include the hot-reload feature, faster application development, wide community support, and many more.
6. Gorilla
Gorilla is the most famous among all the other Golang frameworks and has the most promising community from across the world. The main features of the Gorilla include scalability, modularity, effective application development, web sockets and so on.
7. Goji
Goji is a light weight Golang development framework preferred by a huge number of organizations executing the web projects. It is a simple and easy-to-use framework capable of producing the required results timely and effectively. The main prominent features of Goji include its excellent web-socket support, compatibility with lean APIs, lightweight nature, and so on.
8. Revel
Revel is one more leading name in the list when we talk about feature-rich Golang frameworks. The framework is the one-stop solution to fulfill all your simple as well as complex programming needs. The main features of the same include powerful in-built third-party plugins, great community support, and so on.
Endnote
Golang is a highly robust and easy-to-use language capable of creating instinctive applications to cater to your project requirements. Hence, if you are looking for an effective solution to develop a feature-rich and user-friendly web application you should definitely try out Golang once.
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