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Hexadecimal Literals in Golang

Last Updated : April 19, 2025

Hexadecimal numbers

Hexadecimal (Hex) is a number system with base 16, it has 16 values (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A/a, B/b, C/c, D/d, E/e, and F/f).

Hexadecimal Literals in Golang

In Go programming language, a hexadecimal literal can be written with a prefix 0x or 0X (Zero and X alphabet either in Uppercase or Lowercase). The value which is prefixed with 0x or 0X is considered as a hexadecimal value and it can be used in the program statements like a Hex value can be assigned to a variable or constant, can be used within an expression, can be assigned in an array, etc.

Examples:

0x123AF
0X123AF
0X345
0X AFC
0X00
0XFF
0XFFFFE

Assigning a hexadecimal value to a variable & constant

In the below example, we are creating a variable and a constant, and assigning hexadecimal values to them.

Example of assigning hexadecimal values to a variable & a constant

// Golang program to demonstrate the example of
// assigning hexadecimal values to
// a variable & a constant

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
	// variable
	var a int = 0x123AF
	// constant
	const b int = 0xFF

	// printing the values
	fmt.Println("a = ", a)
	fmt.Println("b = ", b)

	// printing values in the hexadecimal format
	fmt.Printf("a = %X\n", a)
	fmt.Printf("b = %X\n", b)
}

Output:

a =  74671
b =  255
a = 123AF
b = FF

Using a hexadecimal value in an expression

A hexadecimal value can also be used within an expression. In the below program, we are declaring two variables, assigning them with hexadecimal values, and finding their sum with a hexadecimal value 0xFF which is equivalent to 255.

Example of using hexadecimal values in an expression

// Golang program to demonstrate the example of
// Example of using hexadecimal values
// in an expression

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
	// variables
	a := 0x10
	b := 0x20

	// calculating the sum of a, b and 0xFF
	c := a + b + 0xFF
	// printing the values
	fmt.Println("a = ", a)
	fmt.Println("b = ", b)
	fmt.Println("c = ", c)

	// printing values in the hexadecimal format
	fmt.Printf("a = %X\n", a)
	fmt.Printf("b = %X\n", b)
	fmt.Printf("c = %X\n", c)
}

Output:

a =  16
b =  32
c =  303
a = 10
b = 20
c = 12F

Go Hexadecimal Literals Exercise

Select the correct option to complete each statement about hexadecimal literals in Go.

1. Hexadecimal literals in Go start with the prefix ___. --Select-- 0x 0b 0o
2. The hexadecimal literal 0x1A is equal to ___ in decimal. --Select-- 26 18 34
3. Hexadecimal literals are supported in Go since version ___. --Select-- 1.0 1.13 1.5

Check Answers