⚙️ Convert interface to string in Go

August 12, 2021 introduction interface strings

Help us grow this site 🚀. Disable your ad blocker to see non-intrusive ads

To convert interface to string in Go, use fmt.Sprint function, which gets the default string representation of any value. If you want to format an interface using a non-default format, use fmt.Sprintf with %v verb.

fmt.Sprint(val) is equivalent to fmt.Sprintf("%v", val)

package main

import "fmt"

var testValues = []interface{}{
    "test",
    2,
    3.2,
    []int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5},
    struct {
        A string
        B int
    }{
        A: "A",
        B: 5,
    },
}

func main() {
    // method 1
    fmt.Println("METHOD 1")
    for _, v := range testValues {
        valStr := fmt.Sprint(v)
        fmt.Println(valStr)
    }

    // method 2
    fmt.Printf("\nMETHOD 2\n")
    for _, v := range testValues {
        valStr := fmt.Sprintf("value: %v", v)
        fmt.Println(valStr)
    }
}

Output:

METHOD 1
test
2
3.2
[1 2 3 4 5]
{A 5}

METHOD 2
value: test
value: 2
value: 3.2
value: [1 2 3 4 5]
value: {A 5}

Alternatively, you can use the %+v verb to add field names to struct representation:

test
2
3.2
[1 2 3 4 5]
{A:A B:5}

or use %#v to format value in the Go-syntax style:

"test"
2
3.2
[]int{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
struct { A string; B int }{A:"A", B:5}

Thank you for being on our site 😊. If you like our tutorials and examples, please consider supporting us with a cup of coffee and we'll turn it into more great Go examples.

Have a great day!