Perl and Go equivalents

This is a list of equivalents in Perl and Go, meant as a quick start for a Perl programmer learning Go.

Perl Go Notes

Types

× bool

Operators

..
a..z seq
seq ('a', 'z')

× range The range operator in Go is implicit in Perl's for loops.

ref %T (in printf formats) fmt.Printf ("%T", x) in Go prints the type of x.

use utf8; × All Go strings and identifiers are in UTF-8, so it is as if "use utf8;" in Perl was on by default. To get a non-utf-8 string in Go, one uses "bytes" rather than "string".

undef _ Go's _ is equivalent to Perl's undef on the left hand side, used to discard returned list results.

Output

printf fmt.Printf, fmt.Fprintf

print fmt.Print

Strings

substr $x, 10, 20 x[10:20] In Go, use slices to get substrings.

Arrays

my @x = (1, 2, 3); var x [3] int

Associative arrays (hashes)

my %x; make x map[string] string Go has associative arrays but the type needs to be specified.

caller runtime.Caller

Perl	Go	Notes
Types
×	bool
Operators
.. a..z	seq seq ('a', 'z')
×	range	The range operator in Go is implicit in Perl's for loops.
ref	%T (in printf formats)	fmt.Printf ("%T", x) in Go prints the type of x.
use utf8;	×	All Go strings and identifiers are in UTF-8, so it is as if "use utf8;" in Perl was on by default. To get a non-utf-8 string in Go, one uses "bytes" rather than "string".
undef	_	Go's _ is equivalent to Perl's undef on the left hand side, used to discard returned list results.
Output
printf	fmt.Printf, fmt.Fprintf
print	fmt.Print
Strings
substr $x, 10, 20	x[10:20]	In Go, use slices to get substrings.
Arrays
my @x = (1, 2, 3);	var x [3] int
Associative arrays (hashes)
my %x;	make x map[string] string	Go has associative arrays but the type needs to be specified.
caller	runtime.Caller