Define a []byte without hex.DecodeString

Question

I'm working with a HID driver, and this driver reads onto a []byte buffer one of a few different reports. When I use hex.EncodeToString(buffer), it will return a string looking like either 0000 or 0100 or 0200, etc. I want to check, using a switch, against the input from the HID device, and so I want to predefine these possibilities, up outside the main(), how should I proceed?

I've tried these possibilities:

var LEFT []byte = []byte('0000')
// or
var LEFT []byte = `0000`
// or 
var LEFT []byte = '0000'
// or
var LEFT []byte = '\x00\x00' // from the %q Printf verb

The alternative is that I call hex.DecodeString("0000") inside the main() function.

Edit

A note on the solution offered, the EncodeToString hex 0000 or 0100 is not four bytes but rather two:

"\x01" == "01" == '1'

so I can use, in order to get 0100, or 0200, as suggested:

var LEFT []byte{1,0}
// or 
var LEFT []byte("\x01\x00")

Answer 1

Use the following:

var (
    left = []byte{0, 0}
    right = []byte{1, 0}
    // ... and so on
)

If you want to write it on hex:

var (
    left = []byte{0x00, 0x00}
    right = []byte{0x01, 0x00}
    // ... and so on
)

You can also convert a string to a []byte:

var (
    left = []byte("\x00\x00")
    right = []byte("\x01\x00")
)

Use these variables in a switch statement like this:

switch {
case bytes.Equal(v, left):
    fmt.Println("left")
case bytes.Equal(v, right): 
    fmt.Println("right"
}

It looks like you are working with 2 byte numbers encoded in little-endian format. If so, you can decode the bytes to an integer:

const (
    left = 0
    right = 1
)

switch binary.LittleEndian.Uint16(byteSlice) {
case left:
    fmt.Println("left")
case right:
    fmt.Println("right")
}