Are maps passed by value or by reference in Go?

Are maps passed by value or reference in Go ?

It is always possible to define a function as following, but is this an overkill ?

func foo(dat *map[string]interface{}) {...}

Same question for return value. Should I return a pointer to the map, or return the map as value ?

The intention is of course to avoid unnecessary data copy.

In this thread you will find your answer :

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28384343/golang-accessing-a-map-using-its-reference

> You don't need to use a pointer with a map.
>
> Map types are reference types, like pointers or slices1
>
> If you needed to change the Session you could use a pointer:
>
> map[string]*Session
>
> https://blog.golang.org/go-maps-in-action

Here are some parts from If a map isn’t a reference variable, what is it? by Dave Cheney:

> A map value is a pointer to a runtime.hmap structure.

and conclusion:

> Conclusion
>
> Maps, like channels, but unlike slices, are just pointers to runtime
> types. As you saw above, a map is just a pointer to a runtime.hmap
> structure.
>
> Maps have the same pointer semantics as any other pointer value in a
> Go program. There is no magic save the rewriting of map syntax by the
> compiler into calls to functions in runtime/hmap.go.

And an interesting bit about history/explanation of map syntax:

> If maps are pointers, shouldn’t they be *map[key]value?
>
> It’s a good question that if maps are pointer values, why does the
> expression make(map[int]int) return a value with the type
> map[int]int. Shouldn’t it return a *map[int]int? Ian Taylor
> answered this recently in a golang-nuts thread¹.
>
> > In the very early days what we call maps now were written as pointers,
> > so you wrote *map[int]int. We moved away from that when we realized
> > that no one ever wrote map without writing *map.
>
>
> Arguably renaming the type from *map[int]int to map[int]int, while
> confusing because the type does not look like a pointer, was less
> confusing than a pointer shaped value which cannot be dereferenced.

No. Maps are reference by default.

	package main
import "fmt"
func mapToAnotherFunction(m map[string]int) {
m["hello"] = 3
m["world"] = 4
m["new_word"] = 5
}
// func mapToAnotherFunctionAsRef(m *map[string]int) {
// m["hello"] = 30
// m["world"] = 40
// m["2ndFunction"] = 5
// }
func main() {
m := make(map[string]int)
m["hello"] = 1
m["world"] = 2
// Initial State
for key, val := range m {
fmt.Println(key, "=>", val)
}
fmt.Println("-----------------------")
mapToAnotherFunction(m)
// After Passing to the function as a pointer
for key, val := range m {
fmt.Println(key, "=>", val)
}
// Try Un Commenting This Line
fmt.Println("-----------------------")
// mapToAnotherFunctionAsRef(&m)
// // After Passing to the function as a pointer
// for key, val := range m {
//	fmt.Println(key, "=>", val)
// }
// Outputs
// hello => 1
// world => 2
// -----------------------
// hello => 3
// world => 4
// new_word => 5
// -----------------------
}

From Golang Blog-

>Map types are reference types, like pointers or slices, and so the value of m above is nil; it doesn't point to an initialized map. A nil map behaves like an empty map when reading, but attempts to write to a nil map will cause a runtime panic; don't do that. To initialize a map, use the built in make function:

// Ex of make function
m = make(map[string]int)

Code Snippet Link Play with it.