Go Structs

What is a Struct?

Structs (short for structure) are custom data types you create yourself. Structs are composed of properties, each with a built-in data type.

Why use Structs?

Arrays and slices are useful for storing values for the same thing, like the number of students in each class, but arrays and slices are bad for storing values that represent different things. To overcome this issue, we use structs.

Making a Struct

Structs are in the following form:

type struct_name struct {
  member1 datatype
  member2 datatype
  member3 datatype
}
    

For example, we could have:

type CollegeStudent struct {
    firstName string
    lastName string
    major string
    birthYear int
}
    

Using a Struct

Below is an example of using the CollegeStudent struct we created earlier:

var student1 CollegeStudent
var student2 CollegeStudent

student1.firstName = "Aaron"
student1.lastName = "Hou"
student1.major = "Computer Science"
student1.birthYear = 2006

student2.firstName = "Isaac"
student2.lastName = "Shaul"
student2.major = "Art History"
student2.birthYear = 2000