Convert between slices of different types

Question

I get a byte slice ([]byte) from a UDP socket and want to treat it as an integer slice ([]int32) without changing the underlying array, and vice ve

Answer 1

You can do it with the "unsafe" package

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "unsafe"
)

func main() {
    var b [8]byte = [8]byte{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}
    var s *[4]uint16 = (*[4]uint16)(unsafe.Pointer(&b))
    var i *[2]uint32 = (*[2]uint32)(unsafe.Pointer(&b))
    var l *uint64 = (*uint64)(unsafe.Pointer(&b))

    fmt.Println(b)
    fmt.Printf("%04x, %04x, %04x, %04x\n", s[0], s[1], s[2], s[3])
    fmt.Printf("%08x, %08x\n", i[0], i[1])
    fmt.Printf("%016x\n", *l)
}

/*
 * example run:
 * $ go run /tmp/test.go
 * [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8]
 * 0201, 0403, 0605, 0807
 * 04030201, 08070605
 * 0807060504030201
 */