Anonymous Functions

Anonymous functions in Go are functions declared without an identifier. Although they behave like regular functions—accepting inputs and returning outputs—they are primarily used for short-lived operations where reusing the functionality later is unnecessary.

Example 1: Storing an Anonymous Function in a Variable

In this example, we declare an anonymous function inside the main function. The function takes two integers as parameters and returns their product. Notice that there is no name for the function since it is anonymous; instead, it is assigned directly to the variable x.

package main
import "fmt"

func main() {
    x := func(l int, b int) int {
        return l * b
    }
    fmt.Printf("%T\n", x)
    fmt.Println(x(20, 30))
}

When you run the program using the command go run main.go, you will see the following output:

func(int, int) int
600

This output confirms that x is a function taking two integers and returning an integer. The call x(20, 30) computes the product, resulting in 600.

Example 2: Directly Invoking an Anonymous Function

Here, the anonymous function is defined and invoked immediately without being stored in a variable. The function is executed with the provided arguments (20 and 30), and its result is directly assigned to x. Since the function returns an integer value (600), the type of x is int.

package main
import "fmt"

func main() {
    x := func(l int, b int) int {
        return l * b
    }(20, 30)
    fmt.Printf("%T\n", x)
    fmt.Println(x)
}

Upon running this program, the output will be:

int
600

In this scenario, x directly holds the result of the function call, emphasizing how you can use anonymous functions for immediate operations.

Additional Resources

For more information on Go and its features, be sure to check out these useful links:

• Go Programming Language
• Effective Go
• The Go Blog

That's it for this overview of anonymous functions in Go. To reinforce your understanding, consider practicing with hands-on exercises and exploring how anonymous functions can simplify code when used appropriately.