Structure Equality in Golang

What is a struct in Go?

A struct or structure in Go is a user-defined type. It helps with composing different types into a single unit.

	type Employee struct {
	firstName string
	secondName string
	id int
	}

view raw structequality0.go hosted with ❤ by GitHub

When can you compare two structures?

In order to compare two structures, it is imperative that all struct field types are comparable. If the variables being compared belong to different structures, then you will see a compilation error. Golang allows you to compare two structures if they are of the same type and contain the same values for all fields.

Two ways to check for structure equality

1. == operator
2. DeepEqual()

Let’s use the structure defined above and see the two methods in action.

	package main
	import (
	"fmt"
	"reflect"
	)
	type Employee struct {
	firstName string
	secondName string
	id int
	}
	func main() {
	e1 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shankar",
	id: 1,
	}
	e2 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shankar",
	id: 1,
	}
	e3 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shan",
	id: 1,
	}
	fmt.Println("== Operator in practice")
	if e1 == e2 {
	fmt.Println("e1 == e2")
	} else {
	fmt.Println("e1 != e2")
	}
	if e2 == e3 {
	fmt.Println("e2 == e3")
	} else {
	fmt.Println("e2 != e3")
	}
	fmt.Println("DeepEqual() in practice")
	fmt.Println("Is e1 equal to e2 : ", reflect.DeepEqual(e1, e2))
	fmt.Println("Is e2 equal to e3 : ", reflect.DeepEqual(e2, e3))
	}

view raw structequality1.go hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The == operator does a strict comparison, whereas the reflect.DeepEqual method can help you compare the content of the element your pointers point to.

	package main
	import (
	"fmt"
	"reflect"
	)
	type Employee struct {
	firstName string
	secondName string
	id *int
	}
	func main() {
	id1 := 1
	id2 := 1
	id3 := 1
	e1 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shankar",
	id: &id1,
	}
	e2 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shankar",
	id: &id2,
	}
	e3 := Employee {
	firstName: "Anjana",
	secondName: "Shan",
	id: &id3,
	}
	fmt.Println("== Operator in practice")
	if e1 == e2 {
	fmt.Println("e1 == e2")
	} else {
	fmt.Println("e1 != e2")
	}
	if e2 == e3 {
	fmt.Println("e2 == e3")
	} else {
	fmt.Println("e2 != e3")
	}
	fmt.Println("DeepEqual() in practice")
	fmt.Println("Is e1 equal to e2 : ", reflect.DeepEqual(e1, e2))
	fmt.Println("Is e2 equal to e3 : ", reflect.DeepEqual(e2, e3))
	}

view raw structequality2.go hosted with ❤ by GitHub

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