How to Fix “too many arguments to return” Error in Go

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The too many arguments to return error in Go typically occurs when you are “returning more values from a function than specified in its signature.”

To fix the too many arguments to return error in Go, “ ensure that the number of values you are returning from a function matches its signature.“

Reproduce the error

Here’s an example of a function that causes the “too many arguments to return” error.

package main

import "fmt"

func example() int {
  a := 1
  b := 2
  return a, b
}

func main() {
  result := example()
  fmt.Println(result)
}

Output

too many return values

How to fix it?

To fix the error, update the function’s return type signature to match the number of values you return. In this example, you can return a pair of integers by changing the return type to (int, int).

package main

import "fmt"

func example() (int, int) {
  a := 21
  b := 19
  
  return a, b
}

func main() {
  result1, result2 := example()
  fmt.Printf("Result 1: %d, Result 2: %d\n", result1, result2)
}

Output

Result 1: 21, Result 2: 19

Handle the returned values properly and update both the function definition and the function call.

That’s it!