Object Oriented Programming

Go does not have objects and classes, so is not a true object oriented programming. However, you can add methods to types. This gives you most of the same ability without the added complexity of full OOP.

A method is a function with a receiver defined first. Using the Dog type from the structs example.

package main

import "fmt"

type Dog struct {
    Name  string
    Color string
}

func (d Dog) Call() {
    fmt.Printf("Here comes a %s dog, %s.\n", d.Color, d.Name)
}

func main() {

    // create instance of dog
    Spot := Dog{Name: "Spot", Color: "brown"}

    // call object method
    Spot.Call()
}

Limitations

You can define methods on custom types, but are limited to types that are defined in the same package as the method. So you cannot define a method on built-in types, you would first need to extend.

package main

import "fmt"

type MyInt int

func (i MyInt) Double() MyInt {
    return i * 2
}

func main() {
    x := MyInt(3)
    fmt.Println(x.Double())
}