Error handling in Go

Go: Error handling

Golang has a unique approach to error handling that emphasizes explicit handling and reporting of errors. Understanding how to write effective error handling code is essential for creating robust and reliable applications.

Errors are values that indicate an abnormal condition or unexpected behavior in a program. Go has a built-in error type, which is simply an interface that defines an Error() method that returns a string describing the error.

how to define and return an error in Go

Here's an example:

    func divide(x, y float64) (float64, error) {
        if y == 0 {
            return 0, errors.New("division by zero")
        }
        return x / y, nil
    }

here, we define a function called divide that takes two float64 parameters and returns a float64 result and an error. If the second parameter is zero, the function returns an error with the message division by zero. Otherwise, it returns the result of dividing the two parameters.

How to check errors in Go

To check for errors in Go, you typically use an if statement to check if the error value is nil (indicating no error), like below -

    result, err := divide(10, 0)
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println("Error:", err)
    } else {
        fmt.Println("Result:", result)
    }

here, we call the divide function with parameters 10 and 0. Since the second parameter is zero, the function returns an error. We then check if the error is nil using an if statement. Since the error is not nil, we print the error message. If the error were nil, we would print the result instead.

• Error messages in Go are usually written in lowercase and without any trailing punctuation.
• It's also common to define custom error types by implementing the error interface, which can provide more information about the error or make it easier to handle specific types of errors in a program.