What is the bytes.Equal() Function in Golang

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Golang bytes.Equal() function is “used to check whether both byte slices a and b are the same length and contain the same bytes.”

Syntax

func Equal(a, b []byte) bool

Parameters

a, b: The byte slices to be checked.

Return value

The return type of the bytes.Equal() function is a bool, and it returns true if a and b are the same length and contain the same bytes; false, otherwise.

Example 1: Comparing Byte Slices from Strings

package main

import (
  "bytes"
  "fmt"
)

func main() {
  a := []byte("Golang")
  b := []byte("Golang")
  c := []byte("Python")

  if bytes.Equal(a, b) {
    fmt.Println("a and b are equal!")
  } else {
    fmt.Println("a and b are not equal!")
  }

  if bytes.Equal(a, c) {
    fmt.Println("a and c are equal!")
  } else {
    fmt.Println("a and c are not equal!")
  }
}

Output

a and b are equal!
a and c are not equal!

Example 2: Comparing Byte Slices from Files (Assuming two binary files, file1.bin and file2.bin)

package main

import (
  "bytes"
  "fmt"
  "log"
  "os"
)

func main() {
  file1, err := os.ReadFile("file1.bin")
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("Failed reading file1: %s", err)
  }

  file2, err := os.ReadFile("file2.bin")
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("Failed reading file2: %s", err)
  }

  if bytes.Equal(file1, file2) {
    fmt.Println("The contents of file1 and file2 are equal!")
  } else {
    fmt.Println("The contents of file1 and file2 are not equal!")
  }
}

Output

fmt.Println("The contents of file1 and file2 are equal!")

Example 3: Simple program

package main

import (
  "bytes"
  "fmt"
)

func main() {
  a := []byte("hello")
  b := []byte("hello")
  c := []byte("world")

  fmt.Println(bytes.Equal(a, b))
  fmt.Println(bytes.Equal(a, c))
}

Output

true
false

That’s it!

Related posts

Golang bytes.Compare()

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