Convert nil []byte variable to string doesn't panic. Why not?

Question

package main

import ("fmt")

func main() {

    var bts []byte =nil
    fmt.Println("the result :", string(bts)) // why not panic ?
    // the result :
}

https://play.golang.org/p/dzRzzKvUyd

Answer 1

Because zero value of a slice (nil) acts like a zero-length slice. E.g. you also can declare a slice variable and then append to it in a loop:

// Filter returns a new slice holding only
// the elements of s that satisfy f()
func Filter(s []int, fn func(int) bool) []int {
    var p []int // == nil
    for _, v := range s {
        if fn(v) {
            p = append(p, v)
        }
    }
    return p
}

More details can be found here: https://blog.golang.org/go-slices-usage-and-internals