Explore whether golang uses new()

Golang's memory management mechanism is different from other programming languages. It uses an automatic garbage collection mechanism (Automatic Garbage Collection). This mechanism prevents programmers from paying too much attention to issues such as memory allocation, copying, and release, allowing programmers to focus more on writing high-quality code.

However, when developing formally, we still need to do a good job in memory management in order to better control and optimize the performance of the program. Golang provides many memory management functions, such as new() and make(). Today we will discuss whether using new() in Golang is definitely a wise choice.

First, let’s take a look at the new() function. In Golang, the new() function is used to allocate memory and returns a pointer to a newly allocated type zero value. In the following example, we use the new() function to create a pointer p pointing to int type and assign it to nil:

var p *int
p = new(int)

Here, the new() function creates a pointer p pointing to int A pointer to type value, initializes it to 0, and returns this pointer p. Using the new() function for memory allocation is one of the commonly used methods in Golang.

However, the new() function only clears the allocated memory (zero value) and fails to initialize it. If we want to initialize the newly allocated memory to a zero value, we must write additional code. Unlike this, the make() function initializes memory while allocating it. When we need to create some data structures with internal types such as slices, hash tables or channels, we can use the make() function.

In addition, Golang provides us with expression statements to simplify the use of the new() function, which is the reference operator &. Through the reference operator &, we can directly initialize and allocate variables without having to explicitly create a new variable of pointer type.

In the following example, we use the reference operator & to create a new dictionary type variable dict:

dict := &map[int]string{}

Here, the & operator is used to create a pointer to the new dictionary. pointer and assign it to the variable dict. Of course, we can also use the new() function to create the same variable:

dict := new(map[int]string)

Then we will find that when using the new() function to allocate memory, since allocation and initialization are separated, the code becomes become more complex and error-prone.

In general, using the new() function to allocate memory in Golang may not be the optimal choice in some cases. Relatively speaking, if we use the make() function or the reference operator & to create a new data structure variable, the code will be more concise and it will be easier to reduce the probability of writing errors. In the implementation of the program, we should choose the appropriate way to allocate and initialize memory according to the actual situation.

The above is the detailed content of Explore whether golang uses new(). For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!