Why need a special rule for nil map?

[Color Fuzzy]

The rule is:

Attempts to write to a nil map will cause a runtime panic.

We can append new value to a nil slice, why we can't write new item to a nil map? Without this rule, the runtime  can just initialize a nil map when we write new item to it. Why the golang designers don't do like this? I really want to know!

Thanks!

[Dave Cheney]

append returns a new slice value, map assignment returns nothing. Map assignment is a statement, not an expression, so there is nothing to return leaving panic as the only recourse.

[Color Fuzzy]

Thanks for your reply, but I can't get the point.

I think(I am not really sure)  a map is a piece of memory block, and there is a pointer in the block, this pointer points to a hash table. If the map is nil, that pointer can only be zero(nil). 

I think(I am not really sure)  map assignment just change the the hash table. A map assignment to a nil map will panic because the hash table doesn't exist, why not just create one, and assign the address of that hash table to the map's pointer?

[Dave Cheney]

I think(I am not really sure)  a map is a piece of memory block, and there is a pointer in the block, this pointer points to a hash table. If the map is nil, that pointer can only be zero(nil). 

Pretty much, a map value is a pointer to the array of hash buckets that hold the map's data.

 

I think(I am not really sure)  map assignment just change the the hash table. A map assignment to a nil map will panic because the hash table doesn't exist, why not just create one, and assign the address of that hash table to the map's pointer?

var m map[string]int

x := m

m["hello"] = 42

fmt.Println(x["hello"])

What is printed ?

[Color Fuzzy]

Thank's very much, I got something.

The code you write will panic for nil map. I think you want to write make(map[string]int), then that code will print 42, so a map is really a pointer to a data struct. And a nil map M1 is a nil pointer, if we do M2 := M1, M1 M2 will both hold the same pointer nil. Without the special nil map rule, M1["string"] = 42 will change M1's pointer, and M2 still holds the nil pointer, that will confuse people, so they choose panic.

I think that might be the reason, thanks very much!