Go Slices

External

• https://go.dev/ref/spec#Slice_types
• https://go.dev/blog/slices

Internal

• Go Language

Overview

A slice is a descriptor for a contiguous segment of an underlying array, stored separately from the slice variable, and provides access to a numbered sequence of elements from that array. A slice type denotes the set of all slices of arrays of its element type. The slice was used to be referred to as a reference type, but not anymore, "reference type" terminology was removed from Go documentation.

A slice contains a pointer to the underlying array, a length and a capacity. More details available in the structure section. A slice, once initialized, is always associated with the underlaying array that holds its elements. The slice shares storage with its array, and other slices of the same array. A distinct slice that shares the underlying array with an original slice can be created by slicing the original slice with a slice expression.

Go uses pass-by-value, so when slice arguments are passed to functions, the internal fields are copied across, including the pointer to the underlying array. Therefore, the underlying array data structure is intrinsically shared in case of pass-by-value.

Slice Expressions

Slice Expressions

TODEPLETE

Go Slices TODPLETE