create a pointer to a byte in go

To create a pointer to a byte in Go, we can use the built-in unsafe package. The unsafe.Pointer type is a generic pointer type that can be used to store and manipulate memory addresses. We can convert a pointer to a byte using a type assertion.

Here is an example code snippet that shows how to create a pointer to a byte and write a value to the memory location it points to:

main.go
package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "unsafe"
)

func main() {
    // Allocate a byte of memory and get its address
    var b byte
    ptr := unsafe.Pointer(&b)

    // Write a value to the memory address
    *(*byte)(ptr) = 42

    // Read the value from the memory address
    fmt.Println(b)
}
296 chars
19 lines

In this example, we create a byte variable b and get its address using the & operator. We then create a pointer ptr of type unsafe.Pointer that points to the same memory location as b.

To write a value to the memory address, we use a type assertion to cast the unsafe.Pointer to a *byte pointer, and then dereference it to obtain the byte value. We then assign the value 42 to the byte.

Finally, we read the value from the memory address by simply printing the value of b. The output of this program should be 42.

Note: The unsafe package should be used with caution as it bypasses some of Go’s built-in safety mechanisms. It is recommended to use it only when necessary and only by experienced Go programmers.