11-Golang-Interview-Questions-With-Answers

11 Golang Interview Questions With Answers

12/02/2021

Golang (or Go) is an open-source programming language created and developed by Google. It’s intended to be a high-performance server-side language that can replace languages like C++ and Java while also being easier and simpler to use.

Golang is used widely for back-end web development, DevOps, machine learning, and blockchain development. It’s still a relatively new programming language with unique features, so a Golang interview will include specific questions about it since employers want to know you’re proficient at using it before hiring you.

Now, let’s get to the questions about Go programming. It’s hard to know exactly what you’ll be asked during your interview, but these will give you an idea of the kind of questions you should expect.

1. What is Go, and what are its benefits over other programming languages?

Go is a general-purpose language designed for systems programming. It was released in 2007 and is strongly and statically typed.

Go has built-in support for concurrent programming (allowing for highly scalable applications) and garbage collection. You build Go applications using packages to manage dependencies efficiently. Go uses the compile and link model to build binary executables.

Despite all the benefits of being a fast, efficient, low-level language, Go also has a simple, readable syntax that you’d usually find in other languages. Since it handles garbage collection for you, it’s easier to use than other low-level languages like C.

2. How do packages work in Go?

Every Golang application is built out of packages. Each application starts in the main package. You build applications by creating new packages that can be imported into the main package or importing third-party packages. Third-party packages can be imported into your application with Git repository paths.

3. How do you handle errors in Go?

Unlike many other languages, Go doesn’t use exceptions to handle errors. Instead, it has multi-value return capabilities that make it easy to report errors without needing to overload the return value.

Golang code uses error values to indicate an error happened. Here’s a common pattern for handling errors in Go:

func Open(name string) (file *File, err error) f, err := os.Open("myfile.txt") if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }

4. What’s the best way to concatenate strings in Go?

In Golang, every time you manipulate a string, it’ll create a new string because it’s a primitive type in Go and is read-only. To reduce memory copying, you’ll want to use the strings builder class to concatenate strings. Here’s an example:

package main import ( "strings" "fmt" ) func main() { var str strings.Builder for i := 0; i < 100; i++ { str.WriteString("abc") } fmt.Println(str.String()) }

5. What are goroutines?

Goroutines are methods that run concurrently with other Go methods. You can think of goroutines as lightweight threads.

The memory and processing cost of creating a goroutine is low compared to a thread. It’s not uncommon for a Golang program to run thousands of goroutines concurrently.

6. What’s the GOPATH environment variable?

The location of your Go workspace is stored in the GOPATH environment variable. This variable must be set for you to develop with Golang.

7. What’s a workspace in Go?

A workspace is where you keep your Go source code. It’s a directory hierarchy that has these three directories in its root:

  • src: contains Go source code separated into packages
  • pkg: contains package objects
  • bin: contain executable commands

8. What’s a pointer in Go, and how are they used?

A pointer is a variable that holds the address of another variable. Instead of being that variable, it’s only a reference to the original variable. Here’s an example of using a pointer in Go:

var y = 2 var p int p = &y fmt.Printf("y = %d", p)

In the code above, you can access y through the variable p. The operator is called a dereferencing operator, which is used to access the value in the address. The & operator is an address operator that’s used to return the address of a variable.

9. List the types of operators in Go

  • Arithmetic operators
  • Bitwise operators
  • Relational operators
  • Logical operators
  • Assignment operators
  • Misc operators

10. What’s the difference between methods and functions in Go?

Methods in Golang contain receiver arguments and functions don’t. In object-oriented programming terms, this means that a Go method is a Go function on an instance of an object.

Go doesn’t have classes like other object-oriented languages, but you can define a method based on a struct type.

11. What is the GOROOT environment variable in Go?

This environment variable defines the location of the Go SDK in your development environment. You don’t have to edit this variable unless you have multiple Go versions on your system and want to be able to switch between them. It points to the Go home language directory and is set when you install the SDK.

Further preparation and next steps

The questions above are a great way to prepare for your upcoming interviews, but if you need a refresher on Golang’s methods and functions, check out our Learn Go course.

After you pass your interview, you may be asked to complete a technical interview. Technical interviews are coding challenges you’ll complete to showcase your programming skills. They can be pretty intense, so you’ll want to be well-prepared before you walk in.

To get started, check out our technical interview guide. Then, take a look through our Career Center for tips from developers and recruiters in the tech industry and other helpful resources.

Good luck, and we hope you land the job!


Go Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy
Go, or Golang, is an open source programming language developed at Google. The designers of Go wanted developers to have a programming language that made it quick and easy to develop applications. Go is used on servers, web development, and even command line interfaces.

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