How to set default values in Go structs

  1. Force a method to get the struct (the constructor way).

    From this post:

    A good design is to make your type unexported, but provide an exported constructor function like NewMyType() in which you can properly initialize your struct / type. Also return an interface type and not a concrete type, and the interface should contain everything others want to do with your value. And your concrete type must implement that interface of course.

    This can be done by simply making the type itself unexported. You can export the function NewSomething and even the fields Text and DefaultText, but just don't export the struct type something.

  2. Another way to customize it for you own module is by using a Config struct to set default values (Option 5 in the link). Not a good way though.


One possible idea is to write separate constructor function

//Something is the structure we work with
type Something struct {
     Text string 
     DefaultText string 
} 
// NewSomething create new instance of Something
func NewSomething(text string) Something {
   something := Something{}
   something.Text = text
   something.DefaultText = "default text"
   return something
}