Overview

gomacro is an almost complete Go interpreter written in pure Go. At its prompt you type Go one statement at a time and see the value of each expression at once, so you can try a part of a program without building the whole of it. It needs no Go compiler to run your code, and it supports generics (experimental), line editing with Tab completion, and a debugger.

For more information on gomacro, you can also check the link below :

• gomacro's web page

For more information of go please refer standard go website:

• golang

Why to use gomacro

• It helps you learn Go: check how a construct behaves while you are learning it, in a loop of type, read, adjust.

• An expression prints its value and its type, for example 42 // int.

• Packages of the standard library are imported with the usual import "fmt".

Usage

Type a Go statement at the gomacro> prompt and press Enter. Statements run as soon as they are complete, so a for loop prints its output right away. A statement that is not finished yet (an open brace, bracket or parenthesis) goes on to the next line.

Try it

gomacro> 12+31
{int 43}        // untyped.Lit
gomacro> x := 6
gomacro> x * 7
42      // int
gomacro> import "fmt"
gomacro> for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { fmt.Println("Hi:", i) }
Hi: 0
Hi: 1
Hi: 2
gomacro> sq := func(n int) int { return n * n }
gomacro> sq(12)
144     // int

Commands

gomacro also understands some commands that are not part of the Go language. They start with a ":" and can be shortened to their first letters. A few of them:

Limitations

• It is an interpreter, so a heavy computation is slower than the same program built with the Go compiler. Use the Run button of the editor to build and run a whole program.

• Defining generic functions and types is experimental, and generics of imported packages are not available.

• goto can only jump backward, and conversions from and to unsafe.Pointer are not supported.

References

Further information on golang and gomacro can be found in the links below:

• gomacro's web page
• golang