net/http: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference when body is a *Buffer nil

[omarsy]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version
go version go1.15 windows/amd64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

Yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

go env Output

$ go env
set GO111MODULE=
set GOARCH=amd64
set GOBIN=
set GOCACHE=C:\Users\SESA571965\AppData\Local\go-build
set GOENV=C:\Users\SESA571965\AppData\Roaming\go\env
set GOEXE=.exe
set GOFLAGS=
set GOHOSTARCH=amd64
set GOHOSTOS=windows
set GOINSECURE=
set GOMODCACHE=C:\Users\SESA571965\go\pkg\mod
set GONOPROXY=
set GONOSUMDB=
set GOOS=windows
set GOPATH=C:\Users\SESA571965\go
set GOPRIVATE=
set GOPROXY=https://proxy.golang.org,direct
set GOROOT=c:\go
set GOSUMDB=sum.golang.org
set GOTMPDIR=
set GOTOOLDIR=c:\go\pkg\tool\windows_amd64
set GCCGO=gccgo
set AR=ar
set CC=gcc
set CXX=g++
set CGO_ENABLED=1
set GOMOD=C:\Users\SESA571965\Documents\EdgeCore.omar\go.mod
set CGO_CFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_CPPFLAGS=
set CGO_CXXFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_FFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_LDFLAGS=-g -O2
set PKG_CONFIG=pkg-config
set GOGCCFLAGS=-m64 -mthreads -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=C:\Users\SESA57~1\AppData\Local\Temp\go-build806356266=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches

What did you do?

Code to reproduce it

package main

import (
	"bytes"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	var body *bytes.Buffer
	_, _ = http.NewRequest("GET", "https://google.fr/", body)
	fmt.Println("Hello, playground")
}

What did you expect to see?

I want to have the same behaviour when I run this code
package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
)

func main() {
	_, _ = http.NewRequest("GET", "https://google.fr/", nil)
	fmt.Println("Hello, playground")
}

What did you see instead?

panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
[signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x8 pc=0x546824]

goroutine 1 [running]:
bytes.(*Buffer).Len(...)
	/usr/local/go-faketime/src/bytes/buffer.go:73
net/http.NewRequestWithContext(0x5cc7a0, 0xc0000b8020, 0x59583d, 0x3, 0x598c4f, 0x12, 0x5ca900, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, ...)
	/usr/local/go-faketime/src/net/http/request.go:875 +0x524
net/http.NewRequest(...)
	/usr/local/go-faketime/src/net/http/request.go:813
main.main()
	/tmp/sandbox461295219/prog.go:11 +0x7c

[mdlayher]

I don't think there's anything to be done here. A nil *bytes.Buffer and untyped nil are not the same and the example you provide that panics seems to indicate a clear error in your user code, not in net/http.

[omarsy]

Maybe I was wrong about my understanding. But I think a function that provides a pointer as a parameter should handle the case that this pointer should be null.
I know that the two pointers are different but in my understanding I expect the same behaviour.

[omarsy]

Because of this behaviour I am forced to do something like this.

[bcmills]

This is https://golang.org/doc/faq#nil_error.

The fix is to not pass a nil *bytes.Buffer to http.NewRequest, because a nil *bytes.Buffer is a non-nil io.Reader.

[bcmills]

See also #22729.

[omarsy]

ok thank you @bcmills and @mdlayher . But it is strange for me.