This is almost like the expression problem. Copy is a new operation, and you introduced a new type, thus creating a new grid cell nobody from either side could have reasonably known about - except for the fact Copy is in the standard library so you could have known about it but not done anything.
How is the byte counting reader supposed to work in user space without putting the buffer in user space? The article claims there is a way but I want to see what is meant by counting bytes in that case.
sendfile(2) and io.ReaderFrom both return the number of bytes transmitted. The issue is that users are unaware of (or forget about) the optional interface upgrades and fail to define all the methods required for interface upgrades on their wrapper structs. You can definitely make a counting reader with a minimal performance loss, but the proper solution is less obvious than it ideally should be.
Isn’t this a symptom of structural/duck typing where interfaces are not declared? In Java for all its faults this wouldn’t happen because you’d be forced to implement all the interfaces.
The logic uses a type assertion to safely verify if the value backing the provided io.Reader interface also implements the io.ReaderFrom interface. If it matches, then it will use the more efficient implementation
if rf, ok := dst.(ReaderFrom); ok {
return rf.ReadFrom(src)
}
> In Java for all its faults this wouldn’t happen because you’d be forced to implement all the interfaces.
I don't think I would go that far. In Java, many libraries make heavy use of the `instanceof` keyword, which is more or less the same as Go type assertions.
Yes, but contrary to Go, if you change an interface it will be a compiler error if additional methods are missing, unless they have default implementations.
In Java type assertions are mostly used when writing code pre-generics style, like downcasting from a common subclasse into the actual implementation, not to see if an interface is supported, as it is a given from the type system.
If this is a thing you need to beware of, you should more importantly beware of using a version of Go that's been outdated for over 1.5 years and EOL for nearly a year.
16 comments
[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 24.4 ms ] threadSame for Rust. As https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/io/fn.copy.html says, std::io::copy can use copy_file_range(2), sendfile(2), or splice(2).
It's also a totally readable article, really.
Yes, essentially duck typing. See https://github.com/golang/go/blob/65504872cbca64d77f45828409...
The logic uses a type assertion to safely verify if the value backing the provided io.Reader interface also implements the io.ReaderFrom interface. If it matches, then it will use the more efficient implementation
> In Java for all its faults this wouldn’t happen because you’d be forced to implement all the interfaces.I don't think I would go that far. In Java, many libraries make heavy use of the `instanceof` keyword, which is more or less the same as Go type assertions.
In Java type assertions are mostly used when writing code pre-generics style, like downcasting from a common subclasse into the actual implementation, not to see if an interface is supported, as it is a given from the type system.
Context: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/70000 fixed in 1.23.3 (released 2024-11-06), EOL for 1.23.x was 2025-08-06