Conditionals in Go

Sep 16, 2022

Learn how to use conditionals in Go, from the if, else, and else if statements to the switch statement, which needs no break after each case.

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We use the if statement to execute different instructions depending on a condition:

if age < 18 {
	//underage
}

The else part is optional:

if age < 18 {
	//underage
} else {
  //adult
}

and can be combined with other if:

if age < 12 {
	//child
} else if age < 18  {
  //teen
} else {
	//adult
}

If you define any variable inside the if, that’s only visible inside the if (same applies to else and anywhere you open a new block with {})

If you’re going to have many different if statements to check a single condition it’s probably better to use switch:

switch age {
case 0: fmt.Println("Zero years old")
case 1: fmt.Println("One year old")
case 2: fmt.Println("Two years old")
case 3: fmt.Println("Three years old")
case 4: fmt.Println("Four years old")
default: fmt.Println(i + " years old")
}

Compared to C, JavaScript and other languages you don’t need to have a break after each case

Tagged: Go · All topics

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