Understanding goroutines in Go

In Go, a goroutine is a fundamental concept used to achieve concurrency. It allows functions or methods to run independently alongside other functions. Goroutines are lightweight, managed by the Go runtime, and provide a simple way to handle tasks that can operate concurrently.

What is a Goroutine?

A goroutine is a function that runs concurrently with other functions in the same address space. It is created by placing the keyword go before a function call. For example:

go doWork()

This statement starts a new goroutine to execute the doWork() function, allowing the current program to continue executing without waiting for doWork() to complete.

Why Goroutines?

Goroutines are a key part of Go’s approach to concurrency. They are ideal for tasks such as:

1. Handling multiple incoming network connections
2. Performing I/O operations without blocking
3. Running background computations

Communication using Channels

To coordinate and share data between goroutines, Go provides a feature called channels. Channels allow safe communication between goroutines and help prevent issues like race conditions.

ch := make(chan string)

go func() {
    ch <- "Task completed"
}()

message := <-ch
fmt.Println(message)

In this example, the goroutine sends a message through the channel, and the main function receives it. This synchronization ensures that data is passed safely between concurrent tasks.