How to judge zero value of golang reflect

Question

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "reflect"
)

func main() {
    var p1 *string = nil
    var v interface{} = p1
    val := reflect.Indirect(reflect.ValueOf(v))
    if v == nil {
        fmt.Printf("NULL")
    } else {
        if val.CanInterface() {
            fmt.Printf("if is %v\n", val.Interface())
        }
    }
}

This program's output is：

···

panic: reflect: call of reflect.Value.CanInterface on zero Value

goroutine 1 [running]:
panic(0xd65a0, 0xc82005e000)
    /usr/local/go/src/runtime/panic.go:464 +0x3e6
reflect.Value.CanInterface(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
    /usr/local/go/src/reflect/value.go:897 +0x62

···

What's the matter？ Why if v == nil is false?

Answer 1

v isn't nil, it contains a *string.

However, if you want to check if a reflect value is valid (non-zero), you can use val.IsValid() to check.

Also if you want to check if it's nil, you can check if val.Kind() == reflect.Ptr && val.IsNil() {}.

A little demo:

func main() {
    var p1 *string = nil
    var v interface{} = p1
    // this will return an invalid value because it will return the Elem of a nil pointer.
    //val := reflect.Indirect(reflect.ValueOf(v))
    val := reflect.ValueOf(v) // comment this to see the difference.
    if !val.IsValid() {
        fmt.Printf("NULL")
    } else {
        if val.CanInterface() {
            fmt.Printf("if is %#+v (%v)\n", val.Interface(), val.Interface() == nil)
        }
    }
    fmt.Println(v.(*string) == nil)
}

playground