Question

I tried to implement a very trivial io.Reader in Go:

package main

import (
    "io"
    "os"
    "strings"
)

type rot13Reader struct {
    r io.Reader
}

// Very trivial function I implemented.
func (r *rot13Reader) Read(p []byte) (int, error) {
    return 5, nil // Return some trivial values for now.
}

func main() {
    s := strings.NewReader(
        "Lbh penpxrq gur pbqr!")
    r := rot13Reader{s}
    io.Copy(os.Stdout, &r)
}

In the end, I want rot13Reader to apply ROT13 to the string that it is reading, but for now, I am just trying to create a very trivial io.Reader that matches the proper interface.

When I run this program, it never halts. Why? Where do I have an infinite loop?

---

Update: I tried altering the data splice via the for loop below, but it doesn’t seem to actually alter the splice. Do I need to somehow copy over data?

package main

import (

    "io"
    "os"
    "strings"
)

type rot13Reader struct {
    r io.Reader
}

func (r *rot13Reader) Read(data []byte) (int, error) {
    bytesRead, err := r.r.Read(data)

    // Try to alter data... only without this for loop, text prints in standard output... odd.
    for i := 0; i < bytesRead; i++ {
        data[i] += 13   
    }

    return bytesRead, err
}

func main() {
    s := strings.NewReader(
        "Lbh penpxrq gur pbqr!")
    r := rot13Reader{s}
    io.Copy(os.Stdout, &r)
}

Answer 1

io.Copy calls your Read() method continuously.

From the docs:

“Copy copies from src to dst until either EOF is reached
on src or an error occurs. It returns the number of bytes
copied and the first error encountered while copying, if any.”

You need to either send EOF or return an error.

Here’s an updated version that doesn’t endless loop.

http://play.golang.org/p/UCfcw4S8yf

package main

import (
    "io"
    "os"
    "strings"
    "fmt"
)

type rot13Reader struct {
    r io.Reader
}

// Very trivial function I implemented.
func (r *rot13Reader) Read(p []byte) (int, error) {
    return 5, io.EOF // Return some trivial values for now.
}

func main() {
    s := strings.NewReader(
        "Lbh penpxrq gur pbqr!")
    r := rot13Reader{s}
    io.Copy(os.Stdout, &r)
    fmt.Printf("Done copying...\n")
}

If you want to actually copy the string to the output. You need to read from rot13Reader.r and copy it to p in the Read() method.

http://play.golang.org/p/dSCauz0uTw

package main

import (
    "io"
    "os"
    "strings"
    "fmt"
)

type rot13Reader struct {
    r io.Reader
}

// Very trivial function I implemented.
func (r *rot13Reader) Read(p []byte) (int, error) {
    i, err := r.r.Read(p)
    return i, err
}

func main() {
    s := strings.NewReader("Lbh penpxrq gur pbqr!")
    r := rot13Reader{s}
    io.Copy(os.Stdout, &r)
    fmt.Printf("\nDone copying...\n")
}