Explain the use of Go's call by value and call by reference semantics for function arguments?

Question

Jayant Kumar · Accepted Answer

In Go, function arguments are passed by value by default, which means that a copy of the argument is passed to the function. This is known as call by value semantics. When a function modifies the value of a variable passed as an argument, it only modifies the copy of the variable, not the original variable.
Here's an example to illustrate call by value semantics in Go:
func increment(x int) {
    x++
}

func main() {
    x := 0
    increment(x)
    fmt.Println(x) // prints 0, not 1
}

In this example, we have a function increment that takes an integer argument x and increments its value by one. In the main function, we create a variable x with a value of 0, and pass it to the increment function. However, the fmt.Println statement prints 0, not 1, because the increment function modifies a copy of x, not the original variable.
To modify the original variable, we need to pass a pointer to the variable, which allows the function to modify the value at the memory address of the original variable. This is known as call by reference semantics.
Here's an example to illustrate call by reference semantics in Go:
func increment(x *int) {
    *x++
}

func main() {
    x := 0
    increment(&#x26;x)
    fmt.Println(x) // prints 1
}

In this example, we have a function increment that takes a pointer to an integer argument x, and increments its value by one by dereferencing the pointer. In the main function, we create a variable x with a value of 0, and pass a pointer to it to the increment function using the &#x26; operator. The fmt.Println statement prints 1, because the increment function modifies the value at the memory address of the original variable.
In summary, call by value semantics in Go means that function arguments are passed by value, and modifications to the argument only affect the copy of the variable passed to the function. Call by reference semantics, on the other hand, allows functions to modify the value of the original variable by passing a pointer to the variable.

Explain the use of Go's call by value and call by reference semantics for function arguments?

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Explain the use of Go's call by value and call by reference semantics for function arguments?

Jayant Kumar @jayantkumar314

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