Return default value for generic type

How do you return nil for a generic type T?

func (list *mylist[T]) pop() T {
    if list.first != nil {
        data := list.first.data
        list.first = list.first.next
        return data
    }
    return nil
}

func (list *mylist[T]) getfirst() T {
    if list.first != nil {
        return list.first.data
    }
    return nil
}

I get the following compilation error:

 cannot use nil as T value in return statement

You can't return nil for any type. If int is used as the type argument for T for example, returning nil makes no sense. nil is also not a valid value for structs.

What you may do–and what makes sense–is return the zero value for the type argument used for T. For example the zero value is nil for pointers, slices, it's the empty string for string and 0 for integer and floating point numbers.

How to return the zero value? Simply declare a variable of type T, and return it:

func getZero[T any]() T {
    var result T
    return result
}

Testing it:

i := getZero[int]()
fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", i, i)

s := getZero[string]()
fmt.Printf("%T %q\n", s, s)

p := getZero[image.Point]()
fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", p, p)

f := getZero[*float64]()
fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", f, f)

Which outputs (try it on the Go Playground):

int 0
string ""
image.Point (0,0)
*float64 <nil>