How to compare if two structs, slices or maps are equal?

Question

I want to check if two structs, slices and maps are equal.

But I'm running into problems with the following code. See my comments at the relevant lines.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "reflect"
)

type T struct {
    X int
    Y string
    Z []int
    M map[string]int
}

func main() {
    t1 := T{
        X: 1,
        Y: "lei",
        Z: []int{1, 2, 3},
        M: map[string]int{
            "a": 1,
            "b": 2,
        },
    }

    t2 := T{
        X: 1,
        Y: "lei",
        Z: []int{1, 2, 3},
        M: map[string]int{
            "a": 1,
            "b": 2,
        },
    }

    fmt.Println(t2 == t1)
    //error - invalid operation: t2 == t1 (struct containing []int cannot be compared)

    fmt.Println(reflect.ValueOf(t2) == reflect.ValueOf(t1))
    //false
    fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(t2) == reflect.TypeOf(t1))
    //true

    //Update: slice or map
    a1 := []int{1, 2, 3, 4}
    a2 := []int{1, 2, 3, 4}

    fmt.Println(a1 == a2)
    //invalid operation: a1 == a2 (slice can only be compared to nil)

    m1 := map[string]int{
        "a": 1,
        "b": 2,
    }
    m2 := map[string]int{
        "a": 1,
        "b": 2,
    }
    fmt.Println(m1 == m2)
    // m1 == m2 (map can only be compared to nil)
}

http://play.golang.org/p/AZIzW2WunI

Answer 1

You can use reflect.DeepEqual, or you can implement your own function (which performance wise would be better than using reflection):

http://play.golang.org/p/CPdfsYGNy_

m1 := map[string]int{   
    "a":1,
    "b":2,
}
m2 := map[string]int{   
    "a":1,
    "b":2,
}
fmt.Println(reflect.DeepEqual(m1, m2))