Learn

Using our knowledge of addresses, pointers, and dereferencing, let’s return to our initial problem: How can we change the value of a variable when we’re in a different scope? Let’s take a look at the code again:

func addHundred(num int) { num += 100 } func main() { x := 1 addHundred(x) fmt.Println(x) // Prints 1 }

Even though we call addHundred(x), the value of x doesn’t change! Why is that?

Remember, Go is a pass-by-value language. When we call addHundred(x) we’re providing addHundred() with a value of 1. We’re not actually providing the address of x for addHundred() to go in and change the value stored there.

If we want to change the value of x using a function, we’re going to need to first change our function:

func addHundred (numPtr *int) { *numPtr += 100 }

Our new function now has a parameter of a pointer for an integer. By passing the value of a pointer (which is an address) to addHundred(), we can also dereference the address and add 100 to its value. But now that addHundred() expects a pointer for an argument, we’re also going to need to change our main()! The complete code is as follows:

func addHundred (numPtr *int) { *numPtr += 100 } func main() { x := 1 addHundred(&x) fmt.Println(x) // Prints 101 }

Since addHundred() expects a pointer (and pointers are variables that store an address) the final touch was to provide addHundred() the address of x. With that, x is now 101!

Instructions

1.

In main.go, we have two functions, main() and brainwash(). We want brainwash() to change the value of a string to "Beep Boop".

Change brainwash()‘s parameter to be a pointer for a string.

2.

Inside brainwash(), we want to reassign saying to have a value of "Beep Boop". To do that, use the * operator on saying.

3.

In the main() function, call brainwash() with the address of greeting as the argument. Make sure to add this before the print statement at the bottom of main().

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