How to handle character encoding and decoding (e.g., UTF-8) in Go?

In Go, character encoding and decoding, specifically UTF-8, can be handled using the unicode/utf8 package and the built-in string type. Here's an example of how to encode and decode UTF-8 characters in Go:

Encoding UTF-8: You can convert a string to UTF-8 byte representation using the utf8.EncodeRune() function. Here's an example:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"unicode/utf8"
)

func main() {
	str := "Hello, 世界"
	encoded := make([]byte, len(str)*3) // Allocate enough space for encoding
	encodedLength := 0

	for _, runeVal := range str {
		runeLength := utf8.EncodeRune(encoded[encodedLength:], runeVal)
		encodedLength += runeLength
	}

	fmt.Printf("Encoded: %x\n", encoded[:encodedLength])
}

Output:

Encoded: 48656c6c6f2c20e4b896e7958c

Decoding UTF-8: You can decode a UTF-8 byte slice back to a string using the utf8.DecodeRune() or utf8.DecodeLastRune() functions. Here's an example:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"unicode/utf8"
)

func main() {
	encoded := []byte{72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 44, 32, 228, 184, 150, 231, 149, 140}
	decoded := ""
	remaining := encoded

	for len(remaining) > 0 {
		runeVal, runeLength := utf8.DecodeRune(remaining)
		decoded += string(runeVal)
		remaining = remaining[runeLength:]
	}

	fmt.Printf("Decoded: %s\n", decoded)
}

Output:

Decoded: Hello, 世界

Using these functions from the unicode/utf8 package, you can easily handle UTF-8 encoding and decoding in Go.