What happens if I don't cancel a Context?

Question

I have the following code:

func Call(ctx context.Context, payload Payload) (Response, error) {
    req, err := http.NewRequest(...) // Some code that creates req         


        

Answer 1

If you fail to cancel the context, the goroutine that WithCancel or WithTimeout created will be retained in memory indefinitely (until the program shuts down), causing a memory leak. If you do this a lot, your memory will balloon significantly. It's best practice to use a defer cancel() immediately after calling WithCancel() or WithTimeout()