Checking the equality of two slices

Question

How can I check if two slices are equal, given that the operators == and != are not an option?

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    s1 := []int{1, 2}
    s2 := []int{1, 2}
    fmt.Println(s1 == s2)
}

This does not compile with:

invalid operation: s1 == s2 (slice can only be compared to nil)

Answer 1

You need to loop over each of the elements in the slice and test. Equality for slices is not defined. However, there is a bytes.Equal function if you are comparing values of type []byte.

func testEq(a, b []Type) bool {
    if len(a) != len(b) {
        return false
    }
    for i := range a {
        if a[i] != b[i] {
            return false
        }
    }
    return true
}