Non-Blocking Channels in Go
Basic sends and receives on channels are blocking. However, we can use select with a default clause to implement non-blocking sends, receives, and even non-blocking multi-way selects.
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
messages := make(chan string)
signals := make(chan bool)
// Here's a non-blocking receive.
// If a value is available on messages then select will take the <-messages case with that value.
// If not it will immediately take the default case.
select {
case msg := <-messages:
fmt.Println("received message", msg)
default:
fmt.Println("no message received")
}
// A non-blocking send works similarly.
// Here msg cannot be sent to the messages channel, because the channel has no buffer and there is no receiver.
// Therefore the default case is selected.
msg := "hi"
select {
case messages <- msg:
fmt.Println("sent message", msg)
default:
fmt.Println("no message sent")
}
// We can use multiple cases above the default clause to implement a multi-way non-blocking select.
// Here we attempt non-blocking receives on both messages and signals.
select {
case msg := <-messages:
fmt.Println("received message", msg)
case sig := <-signals:
fmt.Println("received signal", sig)
default:
fmt.Println("no activity")
}
}