The Go Programming Language

2.3 Variables

A var declaration creates a variable of a particular type, attaches a name to it, and sets its initial value. Each declaration has the general form

var name type = expression

Either the type or the = expression part may be omitted, but not both. If the type is omitted, it is determined by the initializer expression. If the expression is omitted, the initial value is the zero value for the type, which is 0 for numbers, false for booleans, "" for strings, and nil for interfaces and reference types (slice, pointer, map, channel, function). The zero value of an aggregate type like an array or a struct has the zero value of all of its elements or fields.

The zero-value mechanism ensures that a variable always holds a well-defined ...