A couple questions about https://play.golang.org/p/PdJqR-pSN58

Getting Help
21

Yup! Chosen by the person writing the program.

22

Not at all. Zero value is just the default value for any type when you do not specify a value on initialisation.

23

Hi Cherolyn,

It’s documented in the Go Programming Language Specification here:

https://golang.org/ref/spec#The_zero_value

When you declare a variable and don’t initialize it (or when creating variables other ways), Go initializes the variable to a default, called the zero value. You can think of it sort of like a zero, blank, or “nothing” value. In the case of numbers, zero is used. For bools, false is used, and for strings, the empty string ("") is used.

This allows Go to be more concise, and also guarantees that all data is initialized to something. So declaring variables as

var i int = 0
var s string = ""
var b bool = false

does the same thing as

var i int
var s string
var b bool
24

I looked up a definition for default value and I don’t understand it. Can you help me with this?

I know type means classification of data, and I recall that definition whenever I see the term. It is very helpful to me.

I know value and I am slowly getting initialization.

25

I’m reading over this. Very interesting, and thanks.

Here is a helpful definition of default: a preselected option adopted by a computer program or other mechanism when no alternative is specified by the user or programmer.

And the information that follows is very helpful. I will save this reply to a file.

26

Thanks everyone.

27

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