What does the asterisk do in "Go"?

Question

I'm a web developer looking to expand my horizons in order to get better at programming as a whole. I've done a bit Java and some simple Android applications. I'm now looking into lower level languages like C and Go (which I must say has some beautiful syntax and great ideas thus far, though I'm maybe too inexperienced to comment).

So yeah I've been going through and trying to understand the examples on the Go website and I keep coming across a special asterisk character in examples like this:

s := "hello" if s[1] != 'e' {     os.Exit(1) } s = "good bye" var p *string = &s *p = "ciao" 

Also, I just noticed, what's with the &s? Is it assignment by reference (I might be using PHP talk here)?

Answer 1

* attached to a type (*string) indicates a pointer to the type.

* attached to a variable in an assignment (*v = ...) indicates an indirect assignment. That is, change the value pointed at by the variable.

* attached to a variable or expression (*v) indicates a pointer dereference. That is, take the value the variable is pointing at.

& attached to a variable or expression (&v) indicates a reference. That is, create a pointer to the value of the variable or to the field.