Enforcing the use of constructors in Go

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Table of contents

Disclaimer: This is not idiomatic go code. The whole puprpose of this post was to explore possibile solutions, even if not idiomatic

When using golang, everyone with access to an exported type can create an instance of it, bypassing the use of a constructor function.

Sometimes though you want to protect you struct data from accidental modifications and keep an always valid internal state.

Let's see the problem in code

The problem

// file db.go

// Having a File struct means already having Read access 
type File struct {
  Path   string
  Write  bool
  Append bool
  Delete bool
}

func GetFile(path string, userID int) (*File, error) {
  // Check the user permissions...
  userCanRead := false
  if !userCanRead {
    return nil, errors.New("Can't read file")
  }
  return &File{path, false, true, false}, nil
}

// file main.go  

// Using a safe function 
file, err := db.GetFile("/etc/passwd", 0)
fmt.Println("1", file, err)  

// Unsafely creating the struct, violating the invariants
file := db.File{"/etc/passwd", false, true, false} 
fmt.Println(file)

I shouldn't be able to create a struct File manually and neither should I be able to manipulate my permissions.

Solution 1: Unexported type

If a type is unexported, the user of the library can't create it manually The type will be named file instead of File

// file db.go

// Having a file struct means already having Read access 
type file struct {
  path   string
  canWrite  bool
  canAppend bool
  canDelete bool
}

func GetFile(path string, userID int) (*file, error) {
  // Return private type *file
}

Problems:

Solution 2: Unexported type + interface

I may create an interface around the file type

type FileIntf interface {
    GetPath()
    CanAppend()
    CanWrite()
    CanDelete()
}

This is not a valid solution though because now I can create a fake type FakeFile and implement this interface, manipulating my permissions. Also, some functions may only accept the internal file type, so I may have to convert between the two, checking every time if the conversion was valid.

Solution 3: Unexported type + wrapper type

// file db.go
type FileWrapper struct {
  file *file
}
func (fileWrapper FileWrapper) func Get() {
  return *fileWrapper.file
}

I can still create a db.FileWrapper with default values (having the file field set to nil). That means using the type is impractical, because every time I use the struct I should check if the internal state was contructed correctly or not.

file := db.FileWrapper{}
// This will fail, because the internal `*file` pointer is nil 
fmt.Println(file.Get())

Solution 4: Unexported type + closure

By saving the data inside an anonymous function I can then pass data around safely, without doing any nil check.

// file db.go
type FileFuncWrap func() file
func (f file) WrapFunc() FileFuncWrap {
  return func() {return f}
}

// file main.go
file := db.GetFile("/etc/passwd", 0)

printFile := func(unwrapFile db.FileFuncWrap) {
  fmt.Println(unwrapFile())
}

// Look! I can even pass it around!
printFile(file.WrapFunc())

Solution 5: Unexported type + identity interface

The previous solution probably works ok, but creating many anonymous functions everytime you pass data around may be a bit costly. We saw that functions returning an internal type may be useful... Let's try doing something better.

//file db.go

type FileIdentity interface {
  Identity() file
}

// obviously `file` implements the interface
func (f file) Identity() file {
  return f
}

The interface returns the internal file type, so another package can't implement the interface. (That's exactly what I want)

Now we should be able to store a file by saving it as a FileIdentity

//file main.go

file, _ := db.GetFile("/etc/passwd", 0)
arr := []db.FileIdentity{file} // Look how simple it's to store it! Without conversions!
printFile := func(fI db.FileIdentity) {
  fmt.Println(fI.Identity())
}
printFile(arr[0]) // YAY!

A type returning himself should be way faster than creating a closure everytime.

Solution 6: Unexported type + interface with private method

Thankfully someone on reddit provided me with an even better solution. By creating an interface with a private method, nobody can implement the interface outside the db package, solving the quirks of Solution 2

// file db.go
type file struct {
  path   string
  canWrite  bool
  canAppend bool
  canDelete bool
}
func (f file) Path() string {return f.path}
func (f file) CanWrite() bool {return f.canWrite}
func (f file) CanAppend() bool {return f.canAppend}
func (f file) CanDelete() bool {return f.canDelete}
func (f file) markFileAsValid() {/* This block is actually empty */}

type File interface {
    Path() string
    CanAppend() bool
    CanWrite() bool
    CanDelete() bool
    markFileAsValid()
}

// file main.go
file := db.GetFile("/etc/passwd", 0)
printFile := func(f db.File) { // Much simpler than solution 5
  fmt.Println(f)
}
arr := []db.File{file}
printFile(arr[0])

Working code

You can see and run the last example here