Println vs Printf vs Print in Go: Which One Should You Use?

Understanding Println vs Printf vs Print in Go

Developers with a JavaScript background may be familiar with console.log and console.error functions. However, in Go, there are three distinct ways to log or print information: Println, Printf, and Print.

Println

As its name suggests, this function prints its arguments to the standard output stream (typically the console) and appends a newline character at the end. It is the default function used for simple logging and printing of variables.

Printf

Printf (Print Formatter) is a more versatile function that allows you to format and print values. It takes a format string as its first argument, followed by any number of additional arguments to be formatted. The format string specifies how the subsequent arguments should be printed, including formatting specifiers, such as %d for integers or %s for strings.

Print

Print takes a variable number of arguments and prints them to the standard output stream, separated by spaces. It does not format or append a newline character at the end. This function is useful when you want to customize the output without the overhead of formatting.

To illustrate the differences:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    var FirstName = "Varun"

    fmt.Println(FirstName) // Prints "Varun"
    fmt.Printf("%T", FirstName) // Prints "string"
    fmt.Print(FirstName) // Prints "Varun"
}

In this example:

• Println prints "Varun" because it automatically appends a newline.
• Printf prints "string" because it formats the FirstName variable as its type using the %T specifier.
• Print prints "Varun" because it simply prints the variable without any formatting or newline.

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