How to assign string to bytes array

I want to assign string to bytes array:

var arr [20]byte
str := "abc"
for k, v := range []byte(str) {
  arr[k] = byte(v)
}

Have another method?


Safe and simple:

[]byte("Here is a string....")

For converting from a string to a byte slice, string -> []byte:

[]byte(str)

For converting an array to a slice, [20]byte -> []byte:

arr[:]

For copying a string to an array, string -> [20]byte:

copy(arr[:], str)

Same as above, but explicitly converting the string to a slice first:

copy(arr[:], []byte(str))

  • The built-in copy function only copies to a slice, from a slice.
  • Arrays are "the underlying data", while slices are "a viewport into underlying data".
  • Using [:] makes an array qualify as a slice.
  • A string does not qualify as a slice that can be copied to, but it qualifies as a slice that can be copied from (strings are immutable).
  • If the string is too long, copy will only copy the part of the string that fits (and multi-byte runes may then be copied only partly, which will corrupt the last rune of the resulting string).

This code:

var arr [20]byte
copy(arr[:], "abc")
fmt.Printf("array: %v (%T)\n", arr, arr)

...gives the following output:

array: [97 98 99 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0] ([20]uint8)

I also made it available at the Go Playground


For example,

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    s := "abc"
    var a [20]byte
    copy(a[:], s)
    fmt.Println("s:", []byte(s), "a:", a)
}

Output:

s: [97 98 99] a: [97 98 99 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]

Piece of cake:

arr := []byte("That's all folks!!")