How to determine an interface{} value's "real" type?

I have not found a good resource for using interface{} types. For example

package main

import "fmt"

func weirdFunc(i int) interface{} {
    if i == 0 {
        return "zero"
    }
    return i
}
func main() {
    var i = 5
    var w = weirdFunc(5)

    // this example works!
    if tmp, ok := w.(int); ok {
        i += tmp
    }

    fmt.Println("i =", i)
}

Do you know of a good introduction to using Go's interface{}?

specific questions:

• how do I get the "real" Type of w?
• is there any way to get the string representation of a type?
• is there any way to use the string representation of a type to convert a value?

Solution 1:

You also can do type switches:

switch v := myInterface.(type) {
case int:
    // v is an int here, so e.g. v + 1 is possible.
    fmt.Printf("Integer: %v", v)
case float64:
    // v is a float64 here, so e.g. v + 1.0 is possible.
    fmt.Printf("Float64: %v", v)
case string:
    // v is a string here, so e.g. v + " Yeah!" is possible.
    fmt.Printf("String: %v", v)
default:
    // And here I'm feeling dumb. ;)
    fmt.Printf("I don't know, ask stackoverflow.")
}

Solution 2:

Your example does work. Here's a simplified version.

package main

import "fmt"

func weird(i int) interface{} {
    if i < 0 {
        return "negative"
    }
    return i
}

func main() {
    var i = 42
    if w, ok := weird(7).(int); ok {
        i += w
    }
    if w, ok := weird(-100).(int); ok {
        i += w
    }
    fmt.Println("i =", i)
}

Output:
i = 49

It uses Type assertions.

Solution 3:

You can use reflection (reflect.TypeOf()) to get the type of something, and the value it gives (Type) has a string representation (String method) that you can print.

Solution 4:

Here is an example of decoding a generic map using both switch and reflection, so if you don't match the type, use reflection to figure it out and then add the type in next time.

var data map[string]interface {}

...

for k, v := range data {
    fmt.Printf("pair:%s\t%s\n", k, v)   

    switch t := v.(type) {
    case int:
        fmt.Printf("Integer: %v\n", t)
    case float64:
        fmt.Printf("Float64: %v\n", t)
    case string:
        fmt.Printf("String: %v\n", t)
    case bool:
        fmt.Printf("Bool: %v\n", t)
    case []interface {}:
        for i,n := range t {
            fmt.Printf("Item: %v= %v\n", i, n)
        }
    default:
        var r = reflect.TypeOf(t)
        fmt.Printf("Other:%v\n", r)             
    }
}