I think it is kind of intuitive that empty struct takes 0 bytes whereas a 
bool variable takes 1 byte in memory and hence a map with struct{} values 
would consume lesser memory than the other. I tried checking this using 
code and Randall's point proves:

mapmem.go:

package main

import (
   "fmt"
   _ "net/http/pprof"
   "runtime"
   "unsafe"
)

const (
   entries = 1000001
)

func main() {
   printAllocs()
   //Empty struct takes 0 bytes in memory whereas a boolean takes 1
   s := struct{}{}
   b := true
   fmt.Printf("size of empty struct: %T, %d\n", s, unsafe.Sizeof(s))
   fmt.Printf("size of a boolean: %T, %d\n", b, unsafe.Sizeof(b))

    printAllocs()

    //Map with int keys and bool values
   hashset := make(map[int]bool, entries)

    for index := 0; index < entries-1; index++ {
       hashset[index] = true
   }

    fmt.Printf("Number of elements in map with bool values: %d \n", len(
hashset))
   printAllocs()

    //Map with int keys and empty struct values
   hashmap := make(map[int]struct{}, entries)

    for index := 0; index < entries-1; index++ {
       hashmap[index] = struct{}{}
   }

    fmt.Printf("Number of elements in map with empty struct values: %d \n", 
len(hashmap))
   printAllocs()
}

func printAllocs() {
   var m runtime.MemStats
   runtime.ReadMemStats(&m)
   fmt.Printf("Heap size: %6d \n", m.Alloc/1e6)
}


And here is the output: (Please note that the GC runs and collects memory 
in between most of the times and hence the total heap size shows 22MB 
rather than 47MB)

$ GODEBUG=gctrace=1 ./mapmem
Heap size:      0 
size of empty struct: struct {}, 0
size of a boolean: bool, 1
Heap size:      0 
gc 1 @0.002s 1%: 0.002+0.25+0.019 ms clock, 0.009+0.11/0.045/0.37+0.079 ms 
cpu, 23->23->23 MB, 24 MB goal, 4 P
Number of elements in map with bool values: 1000000 
Heap size:     24 
gc 2 @0.129s 0%: 0.003+0.25+0.018 ms clock, 0.012+0.076/0.066/0.22+0.072 ms 
cpu, 44->44->21 MB, 47 MB goal, 4 P
Number of elements in map with empty struct values: 1000000 
Heap size:     22 

As you can see, the map with struct{} values grows the heap size to ~22 MB, 
whereas the map with bool values takes it close to ~24 MB for a million 
entries. Hence, if you are concerned about memory usage, you would rather 
use empty struct values.

I still feel a map with bool values is easier to read though, but that's 
just my opinion. :)


On Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:18:12 UTC+5:30, adithya...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> is it mentioned anywhere such that "map[string]struct{}" is efficeient?
>
> On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 10:23:08 AM UTC+5:30, Randall O'Reilly wrote:
>>
>> I think map[string]struct{} takes no storage for the value and is the 
>> most efficient way to do this. 
>>
>> - Randy 
>>
>> > On Apr 27, 2020, at 7:20 PM, Shishir Verma <shish...@gmail.com> wrote: 
>> > 
>> > I think the idiomatic way to implement a set in golang is to use a map 
>> with bool values. Here is an example from effective go documentation: 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > attended := map[string]bool{ 
>> >     "Ann": true, 
>> >     "Joe": true, 
>> >     ... 
>> > } 
>> > 
>> > if attended[person] { // will be false if person is not in the map 
>> >     fmt.Println(person, "was at the meeting") 
>> > } 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > 
>> > On Monday, 27 April 2020 22:16:20 UTC+5:30, adithya...@gmail.com 
>> wrote: 
>> > Basically i need a slice with indexed values, so that i can check only 
>> existence. 
>> > or a map with only keys? 
>> > How it can be done? 
>> > 
>> > -- 
>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google 
>> Groups "golang-nuts" group. 
>> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send 
>> an email to golan...@googlegroups.com. 
>> > To view this discussion on the web visit 
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/1201e6f3-621e-4875-9374-d7713fa7d8aa%40googlegroups.com.
>>  
>>
>>
>>

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