Go - Concurrency

Last Updated: 2024-04-09

Concurrency is part of the language, not a library. 3 key concepts:

goroutine: lightweight threads.
channels: typed pipes used to communicate and synchronize between goroutines.
select: control structure to coordinate concurrent operations.

What is goroutine?

A goroutine is a function or method that executes concurrently alongside any other goroutines using a special goroutine thread. Goroutine threads are more lightweight than standard threads, with most Golang programs using thousands of goroutines at once.

to create a goroutine, add the go keyword before the function declaration.

What are Go channels?

Channels are used to transfer data between goroutines.

a channel can transfer data of the same type.
bidirectional.

Receivers always block until there is data to receive.

If the channel is unbuffered, the sender blocks until the receiver has received the value. If the channel has a buffer, the sender blocks only until the value has been copied to the buffer; if the buffer is full, this means waiting until some receiver has retrieved a value.

A buffered channel can be used like a semaphore, for instance to limit throughput.

A channel is created by chan.

var channel_name chan Type
channel_name:= make(chan Type)

To send and received data:

send data: channel_name <- element
receive data: element := <-Mychannel

read vs write

chan // read-write
<-chan // read only
chan<- // write only

How to stop a gorountine?

To make a goroutine stoppable, let it listen a quit channel.

// Create a quit channel.
quit := make(chan bool)
go func() {
    for {
        select {
        case <-quit:
            return
        default:
            // ...
        }
    }
}()

// Send `true` to quit channel.
quit <- true

How to handle errors from goroutines?

errs := make(chan error, 1)
go func() {
    errs <- foo()
}()

// ...

if err := <-errs; err != nil {
    // handle error
}