pointers - Test for nil values in nested stucts

Question

I have a deeply nested struct in go. These are constructed by a json unmarshaller.

Quite some fields in this struct are however 'omitifempty' so I end op with a struct that can have nills in various places.

Example (the real thing is even deeper nested, and big: 400 lines of structs):

package main

import "fmt"

type Foo struct {
    Foo string
    Bar *Bar
}

type Bar struct {
    Bar string
    Baz *Baz
}

type Baz struct {
    Baz string
}

func main() {
    f1 := Foo{Foo: "f1"}
    f2 := Foo{Foo: "f2", Bar: &Bar{Bar: "br2"}}
    f3 := Foo{Foo: "f3", Bar: &Bar{Bar: "br3", Baz: &Baz{Baz: "bz3"}}}

    fmt.Println(f3.Bar.Baz.Baz) //-> bz3
    fmt.Println(f2.Bar.Baz.Baz) //-> panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
    fmt.Println(f1.Bar.Baz.Baz) //-> panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference    
    //so far so good, but

    //is there a more generic way to do this kind of testing?
    if f2.Bar != nil && f2.Bar.Baz != nil {
        fmt.Println(f2.Bar.Baz.Baz)
    } else {
        fmt.Println("something nil")
    }
}

The question is if there is a more generic way to test if some node in the reference tree is nil? I need to get a lot of different items and it will be a pain to write all these if statements. Oh and speed is of concern.

Answer 1

Waitting for answers