Recursive arrays

Today, our final note on array types, and when recursion of types is, and is not, permitted:

Array types

…

An array type T may not have an element of type T, or of a type containing T as a component, directly or indirectly, if those containing types are only array or struct types.

// invalid array types
type (
	T1 [10]T1                 // element type of T1 is T1
	T2 [10]struct{ f T2 }     // T2 contains T2 as component of a struct
	T3 [10]T4                 // T3 contains T3 as component of a struct in T4
	T4 struct{ f T3 }         // T4 contains T4 as component of array T3 in a struct
)

// valid array types
type (
	T5 [10]*T5                // T5 contains T5 as component of a pointer
	T6 [10]func() T6          // T6 contains T6 as component of a function type
	T7 [10]struct{ f []T7 }   // T7 contains T7 as component of a slice in a struct
)

I think the explanation and provided examples are pretty clear. If you ever find yourself wanting this type of recursion, you’ll need to introduce some new intermediate type, such as an empty interface.

type T1 [10]any // Now the elements of T1 may be of type `T1` via the empty
                // interface. However, they can also be of any other type, so
                // probably not a great solution for most uses.

Quotes from The Go Programming Language Specification, Version of January 19, 2023

Related Content

Empty structs

We finally we have enough knowledge for the EBNF format not to seem completely foreign, so let’s jump back and take a look at that, with the examples provided in the spec… Struct types … StructType = "struct" "{" { FieldDecl ";" } "}" . FieldDecl = (IdentifierList Type | EmbeddedField) [ Tag ] . EmbeddedField = [ "*" ] TypeName [ TypeArgs ] . Tag = string_lit . // An empty struct.

Struct tags

Struct types … A field declaration may be followed by an optional string literal tag, which becomes an attribute for all the fields in the corresponding field declaration. An empty tag string is equivalent to an absent tag. The tags are made visible through a reflection interface and take part in type identity for structs but are otherwise ignored. struct { x, y float64 "" // an empty tag string is like an absent tag name string "any string is permitted as a tag" _ [4]byte "ceci n'est pas un champ de structure" } // A struct corresponding to a TimeStamp protocol buffer.

Struct method promotion

Yesterday we saw an example of struct field promotion. But methods (which we haven’t really discussed yet) can also be promoted. Struct types … Given a struct type S and a named type T, promoted methods are included in the method set of the struct as follows: If S contains an embedded field T, the method sets of S and *S both include promoted methods with receiver T. The method set of *S also includes promoted methods with receiver *T.