What is the difference between Go's string and byte slice types?
In Go, both strings and byte slices are used to represent sequences of bytes, but they have different properties and are used in different contexts.
A string is a read-only sequence of bytes that represents a Unicode character string. Strings in Go are immutable, which means you can't modify the individual bytes in a string. Strings are represented by the built-in **string**
type, which is a value type.
A byte slice, on the other hand, is a mutable sequence of bytes that can be modified by the program. Byte slices are represented by the built-in **[]byte**
type, which is a reference type. A byte slice can be modified by changing the value of its individual elements.
Here are some other differences between strings and byte slices:
- Strings can be created from byte slices using the
**string()**
conversion function, and byte slices can be created from strings using the**[]byte()**
conversion function. - Strings have a fixed size, determined by the number of bytes in the string. Byte slices have a dynamic size, which can be changed by appending or slicing the slice.
- Strings can be compared using the
**==**
operator, which compares the contents of the string. Byte slices can also be compared using the**==**
operator, but it only compares the pointers, not the contents. To compare the contents of two byte slices, you can use the**bytes.Equal()**
function.
In general, strings are used to represent text data, and byte slices are used to represent binary data. Strings are often used for input/output operations, while byte slices are used for manipulating data in memory.