golang-safety

To prevent nil interface panics in Go, apply nil-safety patterns that check interface types before invocation and avoid typed nil traps by ensuring interfaces are fully initialized before returning them from functions.

Writing to an uninitialized Go map causes a panic because nil maps cannot be assigned to. You must use lazy initialization with the make function to safely allocate the map before inserting data.

The best way to handle safe type assertions in Golang is using the comma-ok idiom. This pattern prevents runtime panics by returning a boolean alongside the asserted value to verify the assertion's success.

To avoid resource leaks with defer inside Go loops, extract the loop body into a separate function or ensure explicit closure calls. Deferring inside loops accumulates resources until the outer function exits.

Defensive coding in Go requires copying slices and maps when exporting internal state. Defensive copying protects exported data structures from external mutation, ensuring internal state remains safe and unmodified.

A limitation of zero-value safety in Golang is that zero values are not universally safe; while slices and pointers are safely nilable, nil maps and interfaces still cause panics if invoked or written to without initialization.