<!--{
	"Title": "The Go Programming Language Specification",
	"Subtitle": "Version of Oct 15, 2021",
	"Path": "/ref/spec"
}-->

<h2 id="Introduction">Introduction</h2>

<p>
This is the reference manual for the Go programming language as it was for
language version 1.17, in October 2021, before the introduction of generics.
It is provided for historical interest.
The current reference manual can be found <a href="/doc/go_spec.html">here</a>.

duplicate symbols and the linker will fail. To avoid this, definitions
must be placed in preambles in other files, or in C source files.

# Passing pointers

Go is a garbage collected language, and the garbage collector needs to
know the location of every pointer to Go memory. Because of this,
there are restrictions on passing pointers between Go and C.

This property is called DRF-SC.
</p>

<p>
The intent of the formal definition is to match
the DRF-SC guarantee provided to race-free programs
by other languages, including C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Rust, and Swift.
</p>

<p>
Certain Go language operations such as goroutine creation and memory allocation
act as synchronization operations.
The effect of these operations on the synchronized-before partial order

## Changes to the language {#language}...

// to stay in the language.
func print(args ...Type)

// The println built-in function formats its arguments in an
// implementation-specific way and writes the result to standard error.
// Spaces are always added between arguments and a newline is appended.
// Println is useful for bootstrapping and debugging; it is not guaranteed
// to stay in the language.
func println(args ...Type)

(as opposed to the three characters <code>...</code>) is not a token of the Go
language.
</p>

<p>
A link of the form [<a href="#Language_versions">Go 1.xx</a>] indicates that a described
language feature (or some aspect of it) was changed or added with language version 1.xx and
thus requires at minimum that language version to build.
For details, see the <a href="#Language_versions">linked section</a>
in the <a href="#Appendix">appendix</a>.
</p>

## Changes to the language {#language}...

				log.Fatalf("go list: invalid output: %v", err)
			}

			// - Package "unsafe" contains special signatures requiring
			//   extra care when printing them - ignore since it is not
			//   going to change w/o a language change.
			// - Internal and vendored packages do not contribute to our
			//   API surface. (If we are running within the "std" module,
			//   vendored dependencies appear as themselves instead of

name: Gopls bugs or feature requests
description: Issues or feature requests for the Go language server (gopls)
title: "x/tools/gopls: issue title"
labels: ["gopls", "Tools"]
body:
  - type: markdown
    attributes:
      value: "Please answer these questions before submitting your issue. Thanks!"
  - type: input
    id: gopls-version
    attributes:
      label: "gopls version"
      description: "Output of `gopls -v version` on the command line"