Concurrency in Go, also known as Golang, is a key feature that enables developers to build efficient and scalable applications. In this section, we'll cover the basics of concurrency in Go.

What is Concurrency?

Concurrency refers to the ability of a computer program to execute multiple tasks simultaneously. In Go, concurrency is achieved through goroutines and channels.

Goroutines

A goroutine is a lightweight thread managed by the Go runtime. It's the basic unit of execution in Go. You can create a goroutine by using the go keyword followed by a function call.

func main() {
    go printHello()
}

func printHello() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, world!")
}

Channels

Channels are used to communicate between goroutines. They are similar to pipes in Unix. Channels are typed, which means you can only send and receive values of a specific type on a channel.

func main() {
    ch := make(chan string)

    go func() {
        ch <- "Hello, world!"
    }()

    msg := <-ch
    fmt.Println(msg)
}

Synchronization

To ensure that goroutines execute in a predictable manner, Go provides synchronization primitives such as mutexes, wait groups, and channels.

Mutex

A mutex is a locking mechanism that ensures only one goroutine can access a particular piece of data at a time.

var mutex sync.Mutex

func main() {
    mutex.Lock()
    defer mutex.Unlock()

    // Critical section
}

Wait Group

A wait group is a synchronization primitive that waits for a collection of goroutines to finish executing.

var wg sync.WaitGroup

func main() {
    wg.Add(1)
    go func() {
        defer wg.Done()
        // Do something
    }()

    wg.Wait()
}

Conclusion

Concurrency in Go is a powerful feature that allows developers to build efficient and scalable applications. By understanding the basics of goroutines, channels, and synchronization primitives, you can leverage concurrency to improve the performance of your Go applications.

For more information on Go concurrency, check out our in-depth guide on concurrency patterns.

Concurrency