proposal: Go 2: add ?? operator to select first non-zero value

[earthboundkid]

It is often asked why Go does not have a ternary operator. The Go FAQ says,

The if-else form, although longer, is unquestionably clearer. A language needs only one conditional control flow construct.

However, technically Go has a second form of control flow:

func printer(i int) bool {
    fmt.Println(i)
    return i%2 != 0
}

func main() {
    _ = printer(1) && printer(2) && printer(3)
    // Output: 1\n2\n
}

I believe that many of the usecases that people want a ternary operator for could be covered by adding a ?? operator that is similar to && but instead short-circuit evaluates non-boolean expressions while the resulting value is a zero-value.

For example, these two snippets would be identical:

port := os.Getenv("PORT")
if port == "" {
    port = DefaultPort
}

port := os.Getenv("PORT") ?? DefaultPort

Another use case might be

func New(c http.Client) *APIClient {
    return &APIClient{ c ?? http.DefaultClient }
}

In general, ?? would be very useful for setting default values with less boilerplate.

Another use for ?? might be

func write() (err error) {
    // ...
    defer func() {
        closeerr := w.Close()
        err = err ?? closeerr
    }()
    _, err = w.Write(b)
    // ...
}

Some rules: ?? should only work if all expressions evaluate to the same type (as is the case for other operators), and ?? should not work for boolean types, since that would cause confusion in the case of a pointer to a bool. If/when Go gets generics, you can trivially write first(ts ...T) T, so the operator is only worth adding to the language if it has short-circuit evaluation.

In summary, ternary is notoriously unclear, but ?? would not be any more unclear than &&. I believe it would be more clear than an equivalent if-statement since it would more clearly express the intent of setting a default, non-zero value.

[randall77]

None of your examples require the short-circuit behavior. I.e., first(ts ...T) T would work fine for them.

[earthboundkid]

Yes, that's fair, although so far generics are still only theoretical.

[ianlancetaylor]

For language change proposals, please fill out the template at https://go.googlesource.com/proposal/+/refs/heads/master/go2-language-changes.md .

When you are done, please reply to the issue with @gopherbot please remove label WaitingForInfo.

Thanks!

[earthboundkid]

Would you consider yourself a novice, intermediate, or experienced Go programmer?

Intermediate/advanced. Long-time Go user, but not a language dev.

What other languages do you have experience with?

Extensive Python, JavaScript, and PHP. Scattered others.

Would this change make Go easier or harder to learn, and why?

Incrementally harder, since there would be one more operator to learn, but the operator has syntax and semantics similar to the existing && operator, so not as bad as a entirely new language feature.

Has this idea, or one like it, been proposed before?

Not AFAICT, but ternary operators are frequently proposed.

If so, how does this proposal differ?

Rather than creating a full-blown ternary, it only allows the equivalent of (x != 0) ? x : y or || in languages that have weak-typing of booleans.

Who does this proposal help, and why?

It helps anyone who has to write or read default configuration. It helps writers because ?? is shorter. It helps readers because an if-statement can do anything, but ?? is really only useful for setting non-default values, so there's less thinking needed to absorb the meaning of the code.

What is the proposed change?

Add ?? as an operator. First ?? evaluates its LHS. If LHS != the zero value for the type, it returns that value. If LHS == the zero value, it also evaluates RHS and returns that value.

Please describe as precisely as possible the change to the language. What would change in the language spec?

After the "Logical operators" section, there would be a section "Coalescing operator" with text like:

The coalescing operator ?? applies to non-boolean values and yield a result of the same type as the operands. If the left operand value is not the zero value for the type, it yields the left operand value. If the left operand value is the zero value for the type, the right operand is conditionally evaluated and yielded.

In the spec, binary_op = "||" | "&&" | rel_op | add_op | mul_op . would change to binary_op = "??" | "||" | "&&" | rel_op | add_op | mul_op . In the operator precedence table, 2 && would change to 2 && ??. (x ?? y && z would be disallowed by the type system, so the exact precedence shouldn't matter.)

Please also describe the change informally, as in a class teaching Go.

Go provides a convenient way to select the first non-zero value in a series. For example name := input ?? "Anonymous" means if input is not blank, set name to it, otherwise use "Anonymous". If the right hand expression is a function, it will only be called if the left hand expression is a zero-value. For example, name := input ?? get_name() will only call get_name if input is "".

Is this change backward compatible? Breaking the Go 1 compatibility guarantee is a large cost and requires a large benefit.

Yes.

Show example code before and after the change.

Before:

port := os.Getenv("PORT")
if port == "" {
    port = DefaultPort
}

After:

port := os.Getenv("PORT") ?? DefaultPort

Before:

func New(c http.Client) *APIClient {
    if c == nil {
       c = http.DefaultClient
    }
    return &APIClient{ c }
}

After:

func New(c http.Client) *APIClient {
    return &APIClient{ c ?? http.DefaultClient }
}

What is the cost of this proposal? (Every language change has a cost).

The costs are that the ?? would be unavailable for other uses, and learners of Go would have to learn one more operator. Fortunately, this operator is quite similar to the nullish coalescing operator in C#, PHP, and JavaScript, and the or operator in Python, so it would be familiar to many learners.

How many tools (such as vet, gopls, gofmt, goimports, etc.) would be affected?

The language grammar would change, so essentially every tool would need to learn the new grammar. :-(

What is the compile time cost?

Should be negibile.

What is the run time cost?

Negibile.

Can you describe a possible implementation?

See spec changes above.

Do you have a prototype? (This is not required.)

No.

How would the language spec change?

See above.

Orthogonality: how does this change interact or overlap with existing features?

While it could be abused for control flow, I don't see that as being very likely, since && has the same potential today but is not widely used for control flow.

Is the goal of this change a performance improvement? If so, what quantifiable improvement should we expect? How would we measure it?

No.

Does this affect error handling? If so, how does this differ from previous error handling proposals?

It has minor effects on the case of wanting to return the first non-nil error in a write and flush operation:

func write() (err error) {
    // ...
    defer func() {
        closeerr := w.Close()
        err = err ?? closeerr
    }()
    _, err = w.Write(b)
    // ...
}

Is this about generics? If so, how does this differ from the the current design draft and the previous generics proposals?

No, but if there were generics, a user could write a non-shortcircuiting first(ts ...T) T function instead of using this operator.

@gopherbot please remove label WaitingForInfo.

[alanfo]

Although I'm a supporter of adding some sort of short-circuiting ternary operator or built-in function to Go, I'm not convinced that this proposal goes far enough in that direction to be worth doing.

If I'm understanding it correctly, what you're proposing is that ??, which is known as the null-coalescing operator in C# and has counterparts in several other languages, would in effect become a 'zero value' coalescing operator in Go.

So stuff like this would become possible:

a, b := 0, 1
c := a ?? b  // c is assigned 1 as a is 0

a, b = 2, 3
c = a ?? b   // c is assigned 2 as a is non-zero

s, t := "", "one"
u := s ?? t  // u is assigned "one" as s is empty

s, t = "two", "three"
u  = s ?? t  // u is assigned "two" as s in non-empty

As such it's equivalent to writing the following in a C-like pseudo-code:

// d and e are expressions of someType (non-boolean)
someType f = d != zeroValue(someType) ? d : e;       

This is really quite limited compared to a 'full-fat' ternary operator where the condition can be any boolean expression. So, whilst I congratulate you on a novel proposal, I'm finding it difficult to get enthused about it.

[deanveloper]

Note that this is similar to ||, not && in JavaScript and similar weakly-typed languages. && means "if the left side is true, evaluate to the right side" while || means "if the left side is false, evaluate to the right side".

Many languages have similar concepts and are widely used, however I don't see the use as much in Go. Go relies less on classical sentinel values than other languages, and instead uses errors to denote when errors happen, rather than returning a sentinel value.

It still does have it's uses of course as you've shown, but I still think coalescing is a bit limited in the context of Go.

[earthboundkid]

This is really quite limited compared to a 'full-fat' ternary operator

Yes, exactly. :-)

I believe this covers a huge amount of the situations where ternary is actually useful without allowing the complexity of ternary that the Go authors specifically don't want.

Your examples use single letters, so it makes the ?? operator seem pointless, but in real code, these sorts of things come up all the time:

port := os.Getenv("PORT") ?? ":8000"
timeout = timeout ?? DefaultTimeout
logger := s.logger ?? DefaultLogger
client = c ?? http.DefaultClient

etc.

[earthboundkid]

Note that this is similar to ||, not && in JavaScript and similar weakly-typed languages.

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. I realized that I had written the wrong thing before when I was writing up the change proposal template but didn't go back and correct it.

[infeno]

For future proof (if this is the right scenario), we should avoid ??. I’m a beginner in Go but I can see major issue in this proposal.

I have often assume empty string/out of range/garbage value as either valid or not valid, how can we be sure the user supply value/input is correct?

Invalid value could also cause runtime errors that I prefer to stick to the current way to handle such cases with regexp or custom validations in a function that can be change without breaking change and less noise.

port := os.Getenv("PORT") ?? ":8000”  // :-8080 what if I want 9090 or 8000-8181 is in use in other environment? That gonna made lots of changes and adding more validation check.
timeout = timeout ?? DefaultTimeout  // If timeout is -1, if it valid?
logger := s.logger ?? DefaultLogger  // What should contain in logger?
client = c ?? http.DefaultClient  // c is string or non-string type?

In my opinion, I would wish to avoid less boilerplate for this case. I guess it was possible for JavaScript and PHP as they are scripting languages that can benefits from smaller file size transfer over the slow connectivity and seem fragile for Go, and opportunity to make an assumption that it work in my specifications/requirements.

I see Github CLI as one of an example:
https://github.com/cli/cli

[infeno]

TLDR; There are many developers who simply want to solve short-term problem using ?? and someone/other team wish to make changes could be concern if there are other "validations" or whether a ?? b could be replace with func aorb() {...}.

[earthboundkid]

There is a Go proverb, "Make the zero value useful." I believe this makes the zero value easier to use because you can easily write code to test for the zero and use a good default if the zero is provided. Of course there will always be code that needs better validation like "ensure timeout is a positive value" or "port string must begin with colon". This just makes the simple case more simple. The advantage of this vs. a ternary is that a) it's actually simple (IMO, ternary is hard to read) and b) it cannot be abused to create unreadable monstrosities like nested ternaries (a ?? b ?? c is still pretty easy to understand, unlike a nested ternary which everyone agrees is unreadable).

[ianlancetaylor]

There don't seem to be any examples above that require lazy evaluation. If lazy evaluation is not an essential part of this, then it seems that it would be possible to write a generic zero-coalescing function. Using the syntax from the current generics design draft, it would look like

func Default(type T comparable) (a, b T) T {
    var zero T
    if a != zero {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

This is longer to write than ??, but it doesn't require adding a new operator. It seems that we should put this proposal on hold until we have generics, and revisit at that time.

[earthboundkid]

Nitpick, do you need the type to be comparable? Types that aren't fully comparable, such as functions, can still be compared to the zero value.

func Default(type T) (a, b T) T {
    const zero T
    if a != zero {
        return a
    }
    return b
}

Edit: This doesn't compile because zero isn't a constant zero, but const zero T doesn't compile because the value is omitted:

type T = func()

func Default(a, b T) T {
	var zero T
	if a != zero {
		return a
	}
	return b
}

Making a constant of zero value for arbitrary type T seems to be impossible?

[theohogberg]

If {} else {} does exactly what the ternary operator does. Why would the language need more than one way to express the same thing?

[earthboundkid]

As proposed, ?? is not a ternary operator.

[theohogberg]

As proposed, ?? is not a ternary operator.

Sorry, but is this then basically the nullish coalescing operator (??) from javascript?

https://github.com/tc39/proposal-nullish-coalescing

The problem with javascript is that the || operator evaluates empty strings '' and 0 as false and not as strings and ints. This is a "feature" of JavaScript which leads to the use case of adding a nullish coalescing operator. GO does not follow this scenario when it comes to evaluation, thereby the use for a ?? operator seems pointless to be honest. If I want to return a non nil value I would just use if x =! nil {}

[earthboundkid]

Please read the proposal before criticizing:

this operator is quite similar to the nullish coalescing operator in C#, PHP, and JavaScript, and the or operator in Python, so it would be familiar to many learners.

Yes, it is similar to JavaScript, which in turn has taken an operator from C#/PHP.

Your input that you don’t want a new operator is valuable. Giving your criticisms when you clearly haven’t read the proposal is not.

[theohogberg]

Your input that you don’t want a new operator is valuable. Giving your criticisms when you clearly haven’t read the proposal is not.

I'm merely explaining why I personally don't think this proposal will add value to the language as is. I think that was pretty clear in my original answer.

Thank you.

[JohnCGriffin]

Thank you for a well considered feature proposal.

The current Go language has conditional flow control, notably switch and if. However, among serious programming languages, Go is unique in its lack of a conditional expression. With respect to this common programming need, Go comes up short by comparison. The proposed feature would greatly improve Go coding and readability, while taking nothing away from simplicity or compatibility.

[golightlyb]

Would prefer a genuine ternary operator

[earthboundkid]

Would prefer a genuine ternary operator

func cond[T any](match bool, ifVal, elseVal T) T {
  if match { 
    return ifVal 
  }
  return elseVal
}

absoluteDoubleN := cond(n > 0, func() int { return n*2 }, func() int { return n*-2 })()

[kurahaupo]

@seankhliao does this have to wait for Go2? It's not a breaking change, since it adds a new token from a byte sequence that's currently invalid.

@carlmjohnson effective, but rather verbose. Does the current compiler elide the trampolines and extra call frames?

Or maybe we approach this from another angle: some form of auto-lambda for function parameters.

func cond[T any](match bool, ifFn, elseFn lambda T) T {
  if match {
    return ifFn();
  }
  return elseFn();
}

absoluteDoubleN := cond(n > 0, n*2, n*-2)

I would initially allow this only for parameters of functions that can be fully inlined.

I suggest that until Go2, lambda could have an alternative (non-conflicting) spelling, such as func ....

[ianlancetaylor]

@kurahaupo We conventionally label all language changes as v2. We don't currently expect that there will ever be a Go 2 in the sense of adding breaking changes; see https://go.googlesource.com/proposal/+/refs/heads/master/design/28221-go2-transitions.md .

[ianlancetaylor]

As I said over at #60204 (comment), I think that if we do add an operator it should be ||. Not that I'm necessarily in favor of adding an operator, but || is already quite close to what we want here and it seems better to reuse it than to add a new operator.

[ianlancetaylor]

On the subject of auto-lambda, it may be interesting to read #37739.

[earthboundkid]

The argument for a new operator is so you can tell at a glance if a variable is a Boolean or not. Then again in JavaScript it doesn’t seem to present much problem in practice.

[ianlancetaylor]

That is one argument, and it's a good one, but after all if you just look at a + b you don't know if it is an integer type, a floating-point type, a complex type, or a string type.

[DeedleFake]

@carlmjohnson

Though I am somewhat in favor of a new operator over reusing ||, I think it would be even less of a problem to do so here than it is in JS because of static typing catching the rare instance where there is a mixup.

[jimmyfrasche]

Would && be similarly expanded?

[ianlancetaylor]

I don't see what the semantics of an expanded && would be. What did you have in mind?

[jimmyfrasche]

Return the first zero or last nonzero value.

It's what other languages with "expanded" || do for &&. It allows a backdoor ternary in x && y || z but that would be somewhat mitigated by them presumably having to all be the same type.

[earthboundkid]

How would a && b == c bind?

[jimmyfrasche]

I would presume that nothing else changes.

[earthboundkid]

If a b and c are all eg strings, I would want (a && b) == c, but if a is a bool and b c are strings, I want a && (b == c).

[kurahaupo]

On Sun, 4 Jun 2023, 14:07 Carl Johnson, ***@***.***> wrote: If a b and c are all eg strings, I would want (a && b) == c, but if a is a bool and b c are strings, I want a && (b == c).

Oh heavens no, I want to be able to parse an expression in my head BEFORE I go away and look up the object declarations.

[rsc]

Marking this obsoleted by #60204.

[rsc]

This proposal has been declined as obsolete.
— rsc for the proposal review group

[kurahaupo]

@rsc

Marking this obsoleted by #60204.

This proposal would appear to be significantly broader than #60204:

• Short circuit evaluation
• Any type with a "zero" value, not just string
• Compact syntax (as an operator)

So I am unclear why "obsoleted by" wasn't in the opposite direction.

If there are other reasons to decline this proposal, could we have some feedback on them please?

[earthboundkid]

I think using || would be confusing because of type issues like #60933, and using ?? is a big change because it introduces a new operator. I hope that #26842 does get approved some day though.

[ianlancetaylor]

@kurahaupo

• Short circuit evaluation

True.

• Any type with a "zero" value, not just string

#60204 applies to any comparable type, not just string.

• Compact syntax (as an operator)

In the Go world that is a minor advantage.

Adding a new operator is a language change that has a much much higher bar than adding a new function to the standard library. Supporting short-circuit evaluation simply isn't a strong enough argument for adding an operator. Sorry.