Allocate

Allocate provides functions for allocating golang structs so that pointer fields are pointers to zero'd values instead of nil. See the godoc's for more information: https://godoc.org/github.com/cjrd/allocate

Brief Example

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "github.com/cjrd/allocate"
)

type TopLevelStruct struct {
    MyEmbeddedStruct *EmbeddedStruct
}

type EmbeddedStruct struct {
    SomeString string
    SomeInt int
}

func main() {
    topStruct := new(TopLevelStruct)
    fmt.Printf("before using allocate.Zero: %v\n", topStruct)

    allocate.Zero(&topStruct)
    fmt.Printf("post allocate.Zero: %v\n", topStruct)
    fmt.Printf("topStruct.MyEmbeddedStruct.SomeInt==%d\n", topStruct.MyEmbeddedStruct.SomeInt)
    // Note that panics would occur by executing `*topStruct.MyEmbeddedStruct` or
    //`topStruct.MyEmbeddedStruct.SomeInt`
}

# OUTPUT
before using allocate.Zero: &{<nil>}
post allocate.Zero: &{0x8201d2400}
topStruct.MyEmbeddedStruct.SomeInt == 0

Use Cases

• Initializing structures that contain any type of pointer fields, including recursive struct fields
• Preventing panics by ensuring that all fields of a struct are initialized
• Initializing golang protobuf struct (the golang protobuf makes heavy use of pointers to embedded structs that contain pointers to embedded structs, ad infinitum)
• Initializing structs for black box testing (see also https://golang.org/pkg/testing/quick/)