unexpected semicolon or newline before else even though there is neither before else if

Question

I\'m trying to fix these errors in my golang code and if someone could help me with that, I\'d appreciate it.

Here is my code: http://play.golang.org/p/yELWfIdWz5

Answer 1

https://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html#if

You can find the explanation here, but I find it to be a bit bikeshedding. For example, this, unintuitive as it is, compiles:

    if your_age >= 16 {
    say("\n You can earn a Drivers License."); } else
    if your_age >= 18 { say("\n You can vote."); } else
    { say("\n You can have fun."); }

Answer 2

You need to put the 'else' on the line with the close brace in Go.

Go inserts a ; at the end of lines ending in certain tokens including }; see the spec. That means that, fortunately, it can insert the ending semicolon on x := func(){...} or x := []int{1,2,3}, but it also means it inserts one after the } closing your if block. Since if {...} else {...} is a single compound statement, you can't stick a semicolon in the middle of it after the first }, hence the requirement to put } else { on one line

It's unusual, but it keeps the semicolon-insertion behavior simple. Having been hit with unexpected program behavior because of the cleverer semicolon insertion rules in another semicolon-optional language, this seems alright in the scheme of things.

And I can see how the error message was confusing, but 'newline before else' just refers to the newline after the } on the previous line.