如何避免需要指针接收器的接口方法实现？

Question

Consider the following example: http://play.golang.org/p/eAot_sVwND

package main

import "fmt"

type Incrementor interface {
    Increment()
}

type Counter struct {
    i int

    Incrementor
}

func (c *Counter) Increment(){
    c.i++
} 

func main() {
    var c Incrementor
    c = &Counter{}
    c.Increment()
    fmt.Println(c)  
}

Unfortunatelly I need to c = &Counter{} because Counter.Increment() implementation has a pointer receiver otherwise c.Increment() calls won't be able to modify c.x property:

func (c Counter) Increment(){
    c.i++ // no errors, but now we increment c.x having a copy of c as context
}

How to make original implementation works without & on c = &Counter{}? In other words, how to avoid the need for the pointer receiver on C.Increment implementation at all?

This is just a nit, but I think that maybe a pointer is not necessary to do that in Go.

Answer 1

You could consider defining an NewCounter function that encapsulates the initialization of your type (or some 3rd party) and returns a *Counter. Usage could look something like this:

func main() {
    c := NewCounter()
    c.Increment()
    fmt.Println(c)  
}