Not sure what I'm doing wrong

Question

We want the First function to return the first element of the slice we pass in. But it's possible that First might receive an empty slice. So First should also return an error value.
If slice is not empty, have First return the slice's first element, and an error value of nil. If slice is empty, have First return 0, and an error value whose string is set to "Slice is empty". You can use len(slice) to check whether the slice is empty, and fmt.Errorf("Slice is empty") will create the appropriate error value.
My Answer:
```
package utility
import "fmt"
func First(slice []int) (int, error) {
  // YOUR CODE HERE
  if len(slice) > 0 {
    return slice[0], nil
  }
  else if len(slice) == 0 {
    return 0, fmt.Errorf("Slice is empty")
  }
}
```

Jason Anders · Answer

Hey there,
You are really close. The only thing is you are using an else if when you should be using only an else. The if is checking if the length is greater than 0... the only other option is zero or less, so if the fist conditional fails (i.e. the if statement) then the else clause will execute. 
So, you are on the right track you just need to change the
go
else if len(slice) == 0 {

to just
go
else {

Also, for some reason (and I'm fairly new to Go), but the challenge throws an error with your else statement on a new line. If you move it up to the same line as the closing curly bracket for the if it works fine. ?? Tagging @Jay McGavren (https://teamtreehouse.com/jaymcgavren) for clarification if that return really should cause an error?
So, what you need then is this:
```go
package utility
import "fmt"
func First(slice []int) (int, error) {
  if len(slice) > 0 {
    return slice[0], nil
  } else {
    return 0, fmt.Errorf("Slice is empty")
  }
}
```
Keep Coding! :) :dizzy:

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larsberg

larsberg

Not sure what I'm doing wrong

1 Answer

Jason Anders

Jason Anders

Joe Purdy

Joe Purdy

Jason Anders

Jason Anders

Jay McGavren

Jay McGavren