Should I Close the HTTP Response Object After an `http.Get()` Error?

Do We Need to Close the Response Object If an Error Occurs While Calling http.Get(url)?

When invoking http.Get(url), you may encounter a scenario where an error occurs during the request. In such cases, the question arises: is it essential to close the response object?

Answer:

According to the general programming principle, if a function returns multiple values, including an error, you should inspect the error value first. If there is an error (err != nil), you should take appropriate action, and only proceed if the err value is nil.

In the case of http.Get(), it adheres to this concept. If an error occurs, it returns a nil response, like:

return nil, someError

Hence, you should handle it as follows:

res, err := http.Get(url)
if err != nil {
    log.Printf("Error: %s\n", err)
    return
}

defer res.Body.Close()
// Read/work with body

It's noteworthy that even if an error occurs and a non-nil response is returned due to redirection failures, you still don't need to close the response body. However, if you insist on doing so, you can use conditional checks like:

if res != nil {
    defer res.Body.Close()
}

The documentation of http.Response assures that the Body property will never be nil, irrespective of the presence or absence of response data.

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