How Does Go's 'Foreign Function Interface' Enable C Function Calls?

Calling C from Go Using the "Foreign Function Interface"

The FAQ for the Go programming language mentions the "foreign function interface" as a way to call out to C functions from Go code. However, this interface is not documented in detail anywhere else in the official documentation.

To address this gap, let's delve into a practical example from the Go repository: https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/src/syscall/zerrors.go. This file demonstrates how to wrap a C library in Go using the foreign function interface.

In this example, the following steps are taken:

1. C headers are included in a generated Go file (zerrors_gen.go) using the cgo tool to declare C functions and data structures.
2. A Go wrapper struct ZError is defined to represent instances of C ZErrors.
3. Functions to access the underlying C functions are implemented in zerrors.go, such as NewSyscallErr to create a new ZError from a syscall.Errno.
4. A New function is created to provide a convenient way to construct a new ZError.
5. Several utility functions are defined to perform operations on ZError instances.

This example illustrates a real-world application of the foreign function interface and provides valuable insights into the process of interfacing with C functions from Go code.

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