Cannot type switch on non-interface value

Question

I am playing with type assertion using the following dummy code, and I got the error:

cannot type switch on non-interface value

Doe

Answer 1

Type switches require an interface to introspect. If you are passing a value of known type to it it bombs out. If you make a function that accepts an interface as a parameter, it will work:

func typeSwitch(tst interface{}) {
    switch v := tst.(type) {
        case Stringer:
           fmt.Println("Stringer:", v)
        default:
           fmt.Println("Unknown")
    }
}

See the full code here http://play.golang.org/p/QNyf0eG71_ and the golang documentation on interfaces http://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html#interfaces.