How can I log the value of a pointer if it is not nil, otherwise log nil in GO?

Hi I want to log the value of a variable if it is not nil otherwise I want to print anything else

for example:

var point *string
var point2 *string

p:="hi"

point2=&p

fmt.Printf("%v,%v",*point,*point2)

in this case I will have an error since point is nill, so is there any way to print the value of the variable if it is not nil or print anything else if it is nil?

I want to do this in a simple way instead of creating an if/else statement to check if the variable is nil

For a more general way to log out values of pointers or even pointers within structs you can marshal to JSON and log the results.

Here's an example that prints individual pointer & non-pointer values, as well as a struct using this method.

type Line struct {
	Point1 *string
	Point2 *string
	Name   string
}

func main() {
	point1 := "one"
	line := Line{&point1, nil, "fancy"}

	printJSON(line.Point1, line.Point2, line.Name)
	printJSON(line)
}

func printJSON(i ...interface{}) {
	if b, err := json.Marshal(i); err == nil {
		log.Println(string(b))
	}
}

Go Playground

Since there is no ?: operator in Go, the best way is to write a function:

func StringPtrToString(p *string) string {
    if p != nil { return *p }
    return "(nil)"
}

You should probably use if/else in this case BUT if you have many potential "if" conditions for each of point and point2 you can use Switch statements.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {

	type Points struct {
		Point  *string
		Point2 *string
	}

	p := "hi"
	pts := Points{nil, &p}

	switch pts.Point {
	case nil:
		fmt.Printf("%v is empty", pts.Point)
	default:
		fmt.Printf("%v", *pts.Point)

	}

	fmt.Println()

	switch pts.Point2 {
	case nil:
		fmt.Printf("%v is empty", pts.Point2)
	default:
		fmt.Printf("%v", *pts.Point2)

	}

}

Output:

<nil> is empty
hi

Go playground