The “new” function changes in Go 1.26

Here is how you can create a pointer to a boolean in Go 1.26:

// New way in Go 1.26
b := new(true)

This is equivalent to the older, more verbose method:

// Old way
val := true
b := &val

It works for all native types because the operand can be any expression. In addition to booleans, you can use it for:

• Strings: s := new("Hello, Go 1.26")
• Integers: i := new(42)
• Floating-point numbers: f := new(3.14159)
• Complex numbers: c := new(1 + 2i)
• Composite types: l := new([]int{1, 2, 3}) or m := new(map[string]int{"a": 1})
• Function results: p := new(time.Now())

Essentially, if you can write an expression that returns a value of type T, you can now pass that expression to new() to get a *T initialized with that value.

Tip

You can try it out today using gotip:

go install golang.org/dl/gotip@latest
gotip download