function to return an Interface

Question

How come I can say that the result of CreateLion(), a pointer to a struct that implements the Cat interface, is an instance of the Cat interface, and yet I cannot say that CreateLion() is of type "function that returns the Cat interface."

What is the standard Golang approach to achieving this type of behavior?

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    var lion Cat := CreateLion()
    lion.Meow()

    // this line breaks. Why?
    var cf CatFactory = CreateLion
}

type Cat interface {
    Meow()
}

type Lion struct {}
func (l Lion) Meow() {
    fmt.Println("Roar")
}

// define a functor that returns a Cat interface
type CatFactory func() Cat

// define a function that returns a pointer to a Lion struct
func CreateLion() *Lion {
    return &Lion{}
}

Answer 1

Try this:

package main

import "fmt"

type Cat interface {
    Meow()
}

type Lion struct{}

func (l Lion) Meow() {
    fmt.Println("Roar")
}

type CatFactory func() Cat

func CreateLion() Cat {
    return Lion{}
}

func main() {
    lion := CreateLion()
    lion.Meow()

    var cf CatFactory = CreateLion
    fLion := cf()
    fLion.Meow()
}

In most cases, you can assign any type to base type interface{}. But situation changes if type of function parameter is a map[T]interface{}, []interface{} or func() interface{}. In this case the type must be the same.