I'm trying to use go's net/rpc package to send data structures. The data structure includes a pointer to uint64. The pointer is never nil, but the value may be 0. I'm finding that when the value is 0, the receiver sees a nil pointer. When the value is non-0, the receives sees a non-nil pointer that points to a proper value. This is problematic, because it means that the RPC is breaking an invariant of my data structure: the pointer will never be nil.
I have a go playground that demonstrates this behavior here: https://play.golang.org/p/Un3bTe5F-P
package main
import (
"bytes"
"encoding/gob"
"fmt"
"log"
)
type P struct {
Zero, One int
Ptr *int
}
func main() {
// Initialize the encoder and decoder. Normally enc and dec would be
// bound to network connections and the encoder and decoder would
// run in different processes.
var network bytes.Buffer // Stand-in for a network connection
enc := gob.NewEncoder(&network) // Will write to network.
dec := gob.NewDecoder(&network) // Will read from network.
// Encode (send) the value.
var p P
p.Zero = 0
p.One = 1
p.Ptr = &p.Zero
fmt.Printf("p0: %s\n", p)
err := enc.Encode(p)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("encode error:", err)
}
// Decode (receive) the value.
var q P
err = dec.Decode(&q)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("decode error:", err)
}
fmt.Printf("q0: %s\n", q)
p.Ptr = &p.One
fmt.Printf("p1: %s\n", p)
err = enc.Encode(p)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("encode error:", err)
}
err = dec.Decode(&q)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal("decode error:", err)
}
fmt.Printf("q1: %s\n", q)
}
The output from this code is:
p0: {%!s(int=0) %!s(int=1) %!s(*int=0x1050a780)}
q0: {%!s(int=0) %!s(int=1) %!s(*int=<nil>)}
p1: {%!s(int=0) %!s(int=1) %!s(*int=0x1050a784)}
q1: {%!s(int=0) %!s(int=1) %!s(*int=0x1050aba8)}
So when Ptr points to a 0, it becomes nil on the receiver side. When Ptr points to 1, it is passed through normally.
Is this a bug? Is there a way around this problem? I want to avoid having to unmarshall my detastructure on the receiver side to fix all the unexpected nil pointers...