How do i print Variable name instead of the value assigned to the variable?

Question

I have a value assigned to a variable. How do I print the name of the variable instead of the value assigned to the variable? I know I can hard code the variable name into the Printf function, but I don't want to use that. I want to use formater if something like that works in Go.

example

user := "Jada"
fmt.Println(user)

The above will print the value assigned to the variable, which is "Jada".

Is there a way I can have it print the variable name, user, instead of the variable value?

I don't think you can just get the identifier itself. But you can get part of the way using `fmt.Printf("%+v\n", user)` which gives you identifier and the value — Lars Nielsen, Jan 26 '21 at 10:05
This works very well for struct but doesn't work for normal variables. Thanks — Iwuchukwu Chijindu, Jan 26 '21 at 10:20

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 26 '21 at 10:06

3

When you pass a value to a function, the variable name is not passed to it, so it is impossible to print the name of the variable. It's not even possible to get the names of the parameters, for details, see Getting method parameter names.

The closest you can do is use a struct as the parameter type, and you can get and print the name of the fields (using reflection). Or use a map, and pass the variable name as the key.

answered Jan 26 '21 at 10:06

icza

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Thanks. This seems to be the only solution – Iwuchukwu Chijindu Jan 26 '21 at 10:22

How do i print Variable name instead of the value assigned to the variable?

1 Answers1