Why can't I duplicate a slice with `copy()`?

Question

I need to make a copy of a slice in Go and reading the docs there is a copy function at my disposal.

The copy built-in function copies elements from a so

Answer 1

The copy() runs for the least length of dst and src, so you must initialize the dst to the desired length.

A := []int{1, 2, 3}
B := make([]int, 3)
copy(B, A)
C := make([]int, 2)
copy(C, A)
fmt.Println(A, B, C)

Output:

[1 2 3] [1 2 3] [1 2]

You can initialize and copy all elements in one line using append() to a nil slice.

x := append([]T{}, []...)

Example:

A := []int{1, 2, 3}
B := append([]int{}, A...)
C := append([]int{}, A[:2]...)
fmt.Println(A, B, C)    

Output:

[1 2 3] [1 2 3] [1 2]

Comparing with allocation+copy(), for greater than 1,000 elements, use append. Actually bellow 1,000 the difference may be neglected, make it a go for rule of thumb unless you have many slices.

BenchmarkCopy1-4                50000000            27.0 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy10-4               30000000            53.3 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy100-4              10000000           229 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy1000-4              1000000          1942 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy10000-4              100000         18009 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy100000-4              10000        220113 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy1000000-4              1000       2028157 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy10000000-4              100      15323924 ns/op
BenchmarkCopy100000000-4               1    1200488116 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend1-4              50000000            34.2 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend10-4             20000000            60.0 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend100-4             5000000           240 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend1000-4            1000000          1832 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend10000-4            100000         13378 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend100000-4            10000        142397 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend1000000-4            2000       1053891 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend10000000-4            200       9500541 ns/op
BenchmarkAppend100000000-4            20     176361861 ns/op