Clear

The clear() function is built into the Go language, and it zeroes out all elements of a slice, or eliminates all entries from a map. It is separate from the delete() function.

When used on a slice, clear() does not resize the underlying memory—it just assigns zero to all elements. And for maps, clear() is like calling delete() on all keys.

Example

This Go program uses the clear() built-in on both a slice and a map. On the map, it also uses the delete function. It prints the resulting elements after calling clear.

Part 1 We have a 3-element int slice we create with a slice expression. It is possible to use make() to create a slice here.

Part 2 We call clear, and the resulting slice still has 3 elements, but they are all zero now.

Part 3 For our demonstration program, we create a map of string keys and int values—it has 3 of each.

Part 4 With delete, we remove one key from the map, but the rest of the map is left unchanged.

Part 5 If we call clear() on a map, the entire map is erased and we are left with an empty map.

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    // Part 1: create an int slice.
    values := []int{10, 20, 30}
    fmt.Println("Before clear:", values)

    // Part 2: use clear on the int slice.
    clear(values)
    fmt.Println("After clear: ", values)

    // Part 3: create a map with 3 keys and 3 values.
    lookup := map[string]int{"bird": 10, "frog": 20, "rabbit": 30}
    fmt.Println("Map:         ", lookup)

    // Part 4: use delete to remove a key and its associated value from the map.
    delete(lookup, "bird")
    fmt.Println("After delete:", lookup)

    // Part 5: use clear to empty the map.
    clear(lookup)
    fmt.Println("After clear: ", lookup)
}Before clear: [10 20 30]
After clear:  [0 0 0]
Map:          map[bird:10 frog:20 rabbit:30]
After delete: map[frog:20 rabbit:30]
After clear:  map[]

Clear `string` slice

What happens when we clear a slice of strings? While ints are replaced with a 0 value, we get empty strings when we are using strings.

Tip The strings are assigned to the empty string literal, but are not nil—there is a difference.

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    values := []string{"cat", "dog", "bird"}
    clear(values)

    // We have an empty string after calling clear on a string slice.
    for _, v := range values {
        if v == "" {
            fmt.Println("Empty")
        }
    }
}Empty
Empty
Empty

Summary

Though clear() is not available in early versions of the Go language, it is a useful feature in newer releases. It is separate from the delete() built-in.

Clear replaces values with 0 or the empty string literal, and is different than the delete built-in. Delete, meanwhile, is used on maps and removes a key-value pair.

Clear

Example

Clear string slice

Summary

Clear `string` slice