Address of a temporary in Go?

Question

What\'s the cleanest way to handle a case such as this:

func a() string {
    /* doesn\'t matter */
}

b *string = &a()

This generates the

Answer 1

You can't get the reference of the result directly when assigning to a new variable, but you have idiomatic way to do this without the use of a temporary variable (it's useless) by simply pre-declaring your "b" pointer - this is the real step you missed:

func a() string {
    return "doesn't matter"
}

b := new(string) // b is a pointer to a blank string (the "zeroed" value)
*b = a()         // b is now a pointer to the result of `a()`

*b is used to dereference the pointer and directly access the memory area which hold your data (on the heap, of course).

Play with the code: https://play.golang.org/p/VDhycPwRjK9