expected declaration, found 'IDENT' item

Question

Im writing a small code using Memcache Go API to Get data stored in one of its keys . Here are few of lines of code i used ( got the code from Go app-engine docs )

import "appengine/memcache"

item := &memcache.Item {
Key:   "lyric",
Value: []byte("Oh, give me a home"),
}

But the line 2 gives me a compilation error "expected declaration, found 'IDENT' item"

I'm new to Go , not able to figure out the problem

Matisse

Answer 1

The := Short variable declaration can only be used inside functions.

So either put the item variable declaration inside a function like this:

import "appengine/memcache"

func MyFunc() {
    item := &memcache.Item {
        Key:   "lyric",
        Value: []byte("Oh, give me a home"),
    }
    // do something with item
}

Or make it a global variable and use the var keyword:

import "appengine/memcache"

var item = &memcache.Item {
    Key:   "lyric",
    Value: []byte("Oh, give me a home"),
}

Amil

Answer 2

I was getting the same error, but the reason was completely different.

I was using following package name.

package go-example

Seems like, it's not a valid package name. After removing the hyphen, it worked.

Parlour

Answer 3

This error also shows up when assigning value to a variable whose name is a keyword Like using var:= 2 This also causes the error "expected declaration, found 'IDENT' item" So correct the name and it will be fine

Krute