Sum of Digits in Go: A Simple Algorithm Tutorial

#go #programming #algorithms #webdev

Hello, Go enthusiast! We're continuing our roadmap toward landing that dream job. Today we're covering another simple algorithm to help you practice working with data types and basic looping in Go.

Join me as we solve the classic Sum Digits algorithm and land that dreamed job.

Problem Statement

Given an integer, return the sum of its digits. For example, if the input is 123 the output should be 6 (1+2+3).

Let's break down the problem statement: we have an integer as input, we need to process each of its digits, and return an integer as output.

Now that we've established our input, process, and output, let's define our algorithm to solve it.

Algorithm to Solve It

First, we need to check if our input is negative. If it is, we'll convert it to a positive value.

if n < 0 {
    n = -n
}

Initialize a variable sum to 0 to track our running total

sum := 0

Now, implement a loop that continues as long as n is not zero. In Go, this for loop works like a while loop, checking if n is greater than 0

for n != 0 {}

For each iteration, add the last digit of the number to the sum variable using the modulo operator.

sum += n % 10

Then, use the division assignment operator to remove the last digit from the number.

n /= 10

Finally, return the accumulated sum.

return sum

Complete Function Implementation

func sumDigits(n int) int {
    if n < 0 {
        n = -n
    }
    sum := 0
    for n != 0 {
        sum += n % 10
        n /= 10
    }
    return sum
}

Final Thoughts

Go is a beautiful language. This simple yet efficient function demonstrates the language's minimalist mindset. With the rapidly growing demand for Go developers, strengthening your fundamentals is essential to landing that desired job.

Remember, keep learning. Improvement is a marathon, not a sprint. As always, you can find the code for this and other examples in my GitHub repository: https://github.com/RubenOAlvarado/algorithms