Basics and Syntax of Golang

Golang (or Go) is a modern programming language developed by Google. It is known for its simplicity, high performance, and concurrency support. In this blog, we will explore the core concepts and basic syntax of Go.

Installation and Setup

To get started with Go, you need to install it from the official website. After installation, you can verify the version using the terminal:

go version

Structure of a Go Program

A basic Go program:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

Code Explanation:

• package main — defines the main package of the program.
• import "fmt" — imports the standard library for text output.
• func main() — the main function of the program, the entry point.
• fmt.Println — a function to print text to the console.

Declaring Variables

In Go, variables can be declared in multiple ways:

var name string = "Orkhan"
var age int = 26
height := 1.75 // shorthand

• var is used for explicit declaration.
• := is used for shorthand without specifying the type (type inferred automatically).

Basic Data Types

• int — integers
• float64 — floating point numbers
• string — strings
• bool — boolean type (true/false)

Control Structures

Conditional Statements

if age > 18 {
    fmt.Println("Adult")
} else {
    fmt.Println("Minor")
}

Loops

for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
    fmt.Println(i)
}

Functions

Defining and using functions:

func add(a int, b int) int {
    return a + b
}

result := add(2, 3)
fmt.Println("Result:", result)

Working with Arrays and Slices

var arr [3]int = [3]int{1, 2, 3}
slice := []int{4, 5, 6}

• array — fixed size
• slice — dynamic array

Conclusion

Go is a powerful yet simple language, perfect for developing high-performance applications. In this blog, we covered the basics to help you start programming in Go. In the next post, we will explore more advanced topics such as interfaces and goroutines.