How Can I Get the Address of a String in Go?

Getting Address of String Literals in Go: Understanding Restrictions and Solutions

In Go, string literals are immutable values stored in the string table of the program. Attempting to retrieve the address of a string literal, as seen in the test1() function in the provided code, results in a compilation error. This is because taking the address of a literal poses inherent ambiguity.

Go's compiler faces a dilemma when addressing literals: should it return the address of the literal itself, allowing for potentially unsafe modifications, or allocate a copy of the literal and return the address to the new object? This ambiguity is resolved by the language spec, which explicitly prohibits taking the address of literals.

Alternative Solutions

To work around this limitation, consider using a variable to hold string values, as shown in the test2() function. In this case, the address operator can be applied to the variable without any issues. However, if the string is defined as a constant, this approach will not work.

Another option is to utilize composite literals, which are legal exceptions to the general rule of not addressing literals. Composite literals are temporary objects created on the fly, allowing you to get the address of their contents, as demonstrated in the provided spec example.

Key Takeaway

While taking the address of string literals is not possible due to ambiguous semantics, using variables or composite literals offers viable alternatives for obtaining addresses to string values in Go.

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