Is Concurrent Printing to Standard Output Safe in Golang?

Concurrent Printing in Golang

In multi-threaded programming, it's crucial to ensure data consistency when accessing shared resources. This raises the question: is it safe for multiple goroutines to concurrently print to the standard output (stdout) in Golang?

Inherent Problem

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Despite the appearance of isolated printing, printing from multiple goroutines without explicit synchronization can lead to data corruption or unexpected behavior. This issue stems from the lack of built-in synchronization mechanisms for stdout in the core fmt package.

fmt Package Behavior

While the fmt package strives to maintain some level of safety, it cannot fully prevent data intermixing when multiple goroutines write to stdout concurrently. Although process crashes are unlikely, data integrity may be compromised.

Go Documentation Guidelines

Generally, as stated in the Go documentation, any shared resource is inherently unsafe for concurrent access unless explicitly stated otherwise. This principle applies to stdout as well.

Recommended Approach

To mitigate this issue and ensure thread-safe printing, it's recommended to create a separate goroutine dedicated to handling printing. This goroutine can implement necessary synchronization mechanisms to ensure that print statements execute sequentially, maintaining data integrity and preventing corruption.

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