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<div class="example" id="slices">
<h2><a href="./">Go by Example</a>: Slices</h2>
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<p><em>Slices</em> are a key data type in Go, giving a more
powerful interface to sequences than arrays.</p>
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<a href="http://play.golang.org/p/dPQErsP6Yc"><img title="Run code" src="play.png" class="run" /></a>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">package</span> <span class="nx">main</span>
</pre></div>
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<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="s">"fmt"</span>
</pre></div>
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<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="kd">func</span> <span class="nx">main</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Unlike arrays, slices are typed only by the
elements they contain (not the number of elements).
To create an empty slice with non-zero length, use
the builtin <code>make</code>. Here we make a slice of
<code>string</code>s of length <code>3</code> (initially zero-valued).</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">s</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="nb">make</span><span class="p">([]</span><span class="kt">string</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"emp:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>We can set and get just like with arrays.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="s">"a"</span>
<span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="s">"b"</span>
<span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="s">"c"</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"set:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"get:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">])</span>
</pre></div>
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<p><code>len</code> returns the length of the slice as expected.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"len:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">))</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>In addition to these basic operations, slices
support several more that make them richer than
arrays. One is the builtin <code>append</code>, which
returns a slice containing one or more new values.
Note that we need to accept a return value from
append as we may get a new slice value.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">s</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nb">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"d"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nx">s</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nb">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"e"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"f"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"apd:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Slices can also be <code>copy</code>’d. Here we create an
empty slice <code>c</code> of the same length as <code>s</code> and copy
into <code>c</code> from <code>s</code>.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">c</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="nb">make</span><span class="p">([]</span><span class="kt">string</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="nb">copy</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">c</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"cpy:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">c</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Slices support a “slice” operator with the syntax
<code>slice[low:high]</code>. For example, this gets a slice
of the elements <code>s[2]</code>, <code>s[3]</code>, and <code>s[4]</code>.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">l</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"sl1:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">l</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>This slices up to (but excluding) <code>s[5]</code>.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">l</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"sl2:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">l</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>And this slices up from (and including) <code>s[2]</code>.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">l</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nx">s</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">:]</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"sl3:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">l</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>We can declare and initialize a variable for slice
in a single line as well.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">t</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="p">[]</span><span class="kt">string</span><span class="p">{</span><span class="s">"g"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"h"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">"i"</span><span class="p">}</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"dcl:"</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">t</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Slices can be composed into multi-dimensional data
structures. The length of the inner slices can
vary, unlike with multi-dimensional arrays.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre> <span class="nx">twoD</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="nb">make</span><span class="p">([][]</span><span class="kt">int</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="p"><</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">i</span><span class="o">++</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="nx">innerLen</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="nx">twoD</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="nx">i</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nb">make</span><span class="p">([]</span><span class="kt">int</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">innerLen</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="nx">j</span> <span class="o">:=</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">j</span> <span class="p"><</span> <span class="nx">innerLen</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="nx">j</span><span class="o">++</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="nx">twoD</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="nx">i</span><span class="p">][</span><span class="nx">j</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="p">=</span> <span class="nx">i</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nx">j</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
<span class="nx">fmt</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Println</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"2d: "</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">twoD</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Note that while slices are different types than arrays,
they are rendered similarly by <code>fmt.Println</code>.</p>
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<div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">$</span> go run slices.go
<span class="go">emp: [ ]</span>
<span class="go">set: [a b c]</span>
<span class="go">get: c</span>
<span class="go">len: 3</span>
<span class="go">apd: [a b c d e f]</span>
<span class="go">cpy: [a b c d e f]</span>
<span class="go">sl1: [c d e]</span>
<span class="go">sl2: [a b c d e]</span>
<span class="go">sl3: [c d e f]</span>
<span class="go">dcl: [g h i]</span>
<span class="go">2d: [[0] [1 2] [2 3 4]]</span>
</pre></div>
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<p>Check out this <a href="http://blog.golang.org/2011/01/go-slices-usage-and-internals.html">great blog post</a>
by the Go team for more details on the design and
implementation of slices in Go.</p>
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<p>Now that we’ve seen arrays and slices we’ll look at
Go’s other key builtin data structure: maps.</p>
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<p class="next">
Next example: <a href="maps">Maps</a>.
</p>
<p class="footer">
by <a href="https://twitter.com/mmcgrana">@mmcgrana</a> | <a href="mailto:mmcgrana@gmail.com">feedback</a> | <a href="https://github.com/mmcgrana/gobyexample/blob/master/examples/slices">source</a> | <a href="https://github.com/mmcgrana/gobyexample#license">license</a>
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