ptr - work with pointers to basic Go types inline

go get github.com/kevinpfab/ptr

In Go, to get a pointer to a basic literal you need to first set the literal to a variable.

var namePtr *string
name := "Octocat"
namePtr = &name

The ptr package let's you do this inline, which is particularly useful when working with pointer heavy structs.

type Employee struct {
    FirstName *string
    LastName *string
    HourlyRate *float32
}

github := &Employee{
    FirstName: ptr.String("Octo"),
    LastName: ptr.String("Cat"),
    HourlyRate: ptr.Float32(15.00),
}

All basic types and time.Time are supported. Other commonly pointered types in the standard library would be welcome additions.

An extra helper S(v interface{}) string is defined to safely get the string representation of the underlying value of a pointer.

var namePtr *string
fmt.Println(ptr.S(namePtr)) // Writing fmt.Println(*namePtr) would crash the program.
// Output: <nil>

name := "Octocat"
namePtr = &name
fmt.Println(ptr.S(namePtr))
// Output: Octocat

Package ptr is MIT licensed.