How does Go handle memory management and garbage collection?

Go uses a garbage collector to manage memory. The garbage collector is responsible for allocating memory when it is needed and freeing memory when it is no longer in use. The garbage collector runs automatically in the background, and developers do not need to manually manage memory.

The garbage collector in Go is a mark-and-sweep collector. It works by first marking all of the memory that is still in use, and then sweeping up the memory that is no longer in use. During the mark phase, the garbage collector identifies all of the memory that is still reachable from active parts of the program. During the sweep phase, the garbage collector frees any memory that is not marked as reachable.

Go's garbage collector is designed to be fast and efficient, and it is optimized for low-latency applications. It is able to operate concurrently with the main program, which means that it can free memory while the program is still running. This allows for better memory utilization and reduces the risk of memory-related performance issues.

One downside of using a garbage collector is that it can introduce pauses in the program's execution while it is collecting garbage. However, Go's garbage collector is designed to minimize these pauses, and it provides options for tuning the behavior of the garbage collector to optimize it for different types of applications.