How to Convert Arbitrary Golang Interfaces to Byte Arrays for Hashing?

Converting Arbitrary Golang Interfaces to Byte Arrays

When interacting with different data types in Go, it becomes necessary to cast them into compatible formats, such as byte arrays. Encoding/decoding packages like gob enable this conversion for arbitrary interfaces.

In the code example provided, the ComputeHash function aims to hash arbitrary data types to a uint value. To do this, the function requires the input data to be in byte array form. However, the interface{} type can hold various values, making it challenging to directly convert it into a byte array.

The solution lies in the encoding/gob package, which allows for efficient encoding and decoding of various data types into and from byte streams. Here's how to implement this using gob:

import (
    "encoding/gob"
    "bytes"
)

func GetBytes(key interface{}) ([]byte, error) {
    var buf bytes.Buffer
    enc := gob.NewEncoder(&buf)
    err := enc.Encode(key)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return buf.Bytes(), nil
}

In this function, we create a bytes.Buffer instance and a gob encoder. We then encode the interface{} value key into the buffer. The encoded data is returned as a byte array, which can be further processed as needed.

Integrating this function with the ComputeHash function:

func ComputeHash(key interface{}) (uint, error) {
    data, err := GetBytes(key)
    if err != nil {
        return 0, err
    }

    // ... Continue with hash computation using data as a byte array
}

By utilizing gob, we can handle arbitrary data types in a consistent manner, ensuring that they are converted into the appropriate byte array format for the ComputeHash function.

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